Naomi St Hilaire

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love Jesus. Even as a child, I have always been awestruck over the depth of Jesus’ love for myself and all humanity. Each day is driven debt a great desire for all to know this amazing love of Christ.

My missionary journey began as a young girl when I first saw the fall of dictatorship in Romania on dateline NBC and images of what news reporters called “the orphan problem”. Those images haunt me still and, at the time, I told my family I planned to grow up to become a missionary and help children in need.

This desire shaped my education and skill attainment as I went to school first to be a teacher, then finally as an occupational therapist, and then further with medical skill development that would be critical to caring for those in austere environments, underdeveloped countries, and with underserved populations. I also served as a teen and young adult with Child Evangelism Fellowship and other Christian outreach programs to learn how to share the gospel in a variety of settings.

My dream to go across the world and tell others of Jesus’ love first became a possibility on 2 short term missions trips to Quito Ecuador as a high schooler, where our group conducted Vacation Bible Schools in the prisons and assisted in building a prison rehabilitation facility. Once in college, I spent most of my summer breaks working with Romanian Evangelical Medical Mission where our teams conducted street ministry, local medical intensives, and assisted at a private orphanage.

Once I received my Occupational Therapy training I have had the privilege of serving in India, training a pediatric rehab team at a local hospital, within the homes of special needs children, and at an orphanage where reconstructive surgeries were being conducted on children with limb deformities caused by polio.

I also spent a month in Kenya at Kapsowar Mission Hospital working alongside local staff and rehabilitation specialists and training nursing students to develop rehabilitation techniques for all hospital populations, including neonatal care, cleft palette oral motor and feeding program, neurological techniques for cerebral palsey and stroke, post amputation care, and post trauma care.

The Lord has granted me the privilege to use my medical skills as a tool for offering His hope and love to people who are often going through the most trying or difficult seasons of their lives. This responsibility for the least of these is not taken lightly and I’m grateful every day for the opportunity to be used as a vessel. My prayer for myself and others is the same as Paul in Ephesians 3:18; that we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love.”