Mission Statement
LEAP is dedicated to enhancing and enriching the lives of people around the world by providing specialized medical and surgical services in the love of Christ.
Dedicated to Changing Lives:
LEAP transforms the lives of children and adults who have severe facial or body deformities. Our current outreach includes annual missions to the Dominican Republic, Belize, India, Zimbabwe, and, due to the ongoing conditions, multiple missions per year to Haiti.
LEAP has committed to yearly trips to the Dominican Republic, bringing cleft lip & palate, craniofacial, and hand surgery as well as ophthalmologic surgery, eye prosthetics, and orthodontics. For the past 6 years there has been a yearly trip in February to Damoh, India where a backlog of 650 cleft patients without any other possibilities for surgical care were waiting. Belize has also been a destination for over 10 years. 2009 was the first year LEAP journeyed to Harare, Zimbabwe where God is continuing to build a long-term relationship. At each destination, LEAP has developed a relationship with the local hospitals, foundations, rotary clubs, universities, or churches in order to best tailor the teams to the needs of the people.
LEAP’s work is not limited to the countries we serve. LEAP has many patients that travel to us through the Landmark Fund. We are constantly evaluating potential future partnerships that will allow us to take our surgical teams where they are needed and where we can change lives and show the love of Christ.
Dedicated to Communities:
LEAP provides support and education to families and communities in order to help them welcome their loved ones back into the community as participating members. Through this approach, LEAP is able to equip and empower those whom LEAP serves for a lasting impact.
Dedicated to Training:
We work with local partners to provide training and the resources necessary to ensure continual care. We provide teaching clinics for patient families with feeding and care instruction, as well as field and classroom training for local surgeons on state-of-the-art practices and procedures. This comes in different forms depending on the need and possibilities in each area:
India
In India, where cleft palate babies are often severely malnourished, a team of nurses sets up teaching clinic for the local health-care workers and families, providing education on feeding and care of these babies to prepare for future surgeries.
Dominican Republic
In the early nineties, the foundation made a dedicated trip to the Dominican Republic to train a group of local technicians and establish an eye prosthetics lab under the direction of our prosthetician Randy Trawnik. Now there is a self-contained ongoing eye program in the Dominican Republic.
Zimbabwe
A new relationship with the University of Zimbabwe Surgery Department and Celebration Ministries has recently paved the road for educational trips in Zimbabwe. On the team’s recent mission to Harare, Zimbabwe, the university residents and surgeons participated in the operating room along with the LEAP Craniofacial Surgery team. In this university setting, there was also the unique opportunity for formal lectures on specific topics.
Dedicated to the Impossible:
Some cases are much too complicated to be done in developing countries. LEAP, known as the ‘medical team of last resort,’ has a special fund to bring patients back to the United States to undergo procedures in a safe and controlled setting. Learn more about the Landmark Fund.
LEAP has a special fund that allows some children with extremely complicated medical deformities to be brought to the U.S. where LEAP doctors and nurses perform the complex reconstructive procedures.
Dedicated to Christ:
LEAP is a faith-based Christian organization. The mission for LEAP is to show others the love of Christ through our work, and, hopefully, open the door for others to see Christ. When we go to remote parts of the world and change a life for a person who may have no hope, it is an example of the gospel — grace intervening in an otherwise hopeless situation. When asked why we do this, we tell them “because Christ saved us from a hopeless situation, and His love is available to everyone.”
LEAP provides its services to all patients in need, regardless of religious or political affiliation. LEAP also welcomes volunteers that are not Christian. The only requirement is that the Christian principles that define LEAP are respected and followed in serving others. One of the great joys of LEAP is seeing lives changed both in our patients and their communities, and even in some of our own team members.
Operating Principles
- LEAP is called to serve others in the love of Christ through the talents of team members.
- LEAP is dedicated to providing specialized medical services free of charge to the patients and families.
- LEAP partners with local hospitals and communities to provide care and surgeries to untouched regions of the world.
- LEAP is dedicated to long-term commitments and relationships established in those countries we serve, partnering with local organizations to assure the greatest continual care for the patients.
- LEAP is committed to bringing the most gifted and talented medical professionals to ensure the best care possible in the countries we serve.
- LEAP is determined on training the nations we serve with the latest health care teachings and procedures.
