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Why pulling teeth in Venezuela beat up punting on the Thames.

by Norman Miller

When Ben and Lucy Locke began talking about their 25th wedding anniversary celebration, the destination that seemed to keep coming up was England. Since the Tennessee couple was building an English country home, Lucy was excited at the prospect of picking up some architectural ideas as well as looking for antiques.

"Then the Holy Spirit had a 'sledgehammer talk' with me while I was sitting in church one Sunday," Ben says. He says the Lord challenged him to think of a way to give of himself in return for all God had done for his marriage and family.

Dewey Dunn, a fellow member of Brentwood Baptist Church, was looking for volunteers for a medical/dental mission trip to Barquisimeto, Venezuela. He asked Ben, a dentist, to go.

Meanwhile, Lucy had been praying for three years about a volunteer mission trip. "I knew we would go sometime, but I was waiting on the Lord's timing," she says.

So rather than the cozy comfort of a cottage nestled amid the English countryside, the Lockes opted for a spartan Venezuelan hotel and a makeshift dentist's office with an antiquated chair. But even here, romance bloomed.

"The trip was good for our marriage," says Lucy. "Ben works very hard, but it was special for me to see how he cared so deeply for the Venezuelans."

Ben fell deeper in love with Lucy, too, as he saw his wife serve others in Christ's name.

Lucy assisted Ben by first brushing the patient's teeth, then holding a flashlight so Ben could see what he was doing. She rubbed Ben's aching back, wiped the sweat off his brow and, through an interpreter, told the patients about Jesus' love.

Lucy also organized oral hygiene clinics, teaching the interpreters how to clean their teeth so they could instruct the patients.

"Ben and I were touched by the sight of two of our patients standing in their front yards—with water hoses running—cleaning their teeth with the brushes we gave them," she says.

Each morning, Ben would awaken at 3 a.m., praying that the Lord would alleviate his patients' pain. He also prayed for himself. Since he primarily does root canals, he was a bit nervous about extracting teeth, especially without x-rays. Before the trip, he had pulled about 10 teeth in 16 years. In Venezuela he pulled 248 in five days without any problems.

The dental ministry was only a small part of the trip. Caring for the people introduced them to the gospel, Ben says. Three medical/dental/optometric teams treated 3,006 people, and 1,733 of them made decisions for Christ during the week.

Seeing Venezuelans become spiritually transformed was Lucy's biggest motivation to go on the trip. "I wish we could see 1,700 people becoming Christians more often," she says.

A Christian Reader original article.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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