Living the Mission Blog
Erica Smith, executive director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach, offers a unique perspective of global and local health in her blog, Living the Mission. Travel with her as she and her colleagues visit international partners to understand their supply and equipment needs. Get to know the clinicians and CEOs in other countries who face the challenges of running a hospital with limited resources. Walk with her through the warehouse as she visits with volunteers who spend countless hours sorting supplies donated by Midwest hospitals and clinics. How you view health care – at home and abroad – just might change.
Viewing:
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Continuing to support and pray for Ukraine
April 09, 2024In her last blog of this journey, Erica shares her final thoughts about the people she met in Ukraine and the deep resolve of health care and social service providers who continue to meet needs while also dealing with their own loss and pain.Read More -
Caring for Ukraine’s refugee children
April 04, 2024In her latest blog, Erica shares about meeting a minister and his wife in Ternopil, Ukraine providing support and mental health services to children displaced from their homes by the war, offering them love, caring and teddy bears to hug when they need to.Read More -
Praying double
April 02, 2024In her latest blog, Erica shares about meeting Ukrainian chaplains whose proximity to the port of Odesa means they are in constant danger yet view their current experience as the opportunity to live their vocation to the fullest for God.Read More -
Air raid sirens and church bells ring out Easter Sunday
April 01, 2024In her latest blog, Erica shares images of renewal and resilience, a true demonstration of the Ukrainian people.Read More -
A different view of the Stations of the Cross
March 29, 2024On Good Friday of Holy Week, Erica shares in her latest blog photos that demonstrate the courage of the Ukrainian people in the midst of tragedy that remind her of the Stations of the Cross.Read More -
Helping carry the cross of Christ
March 27, 2024Erica shares in her latest blog about visiting a ministry in Kyiv that provides housing, services, and emergency shelter to adults and children experiencing homelessness and reflects on what it looks like to be Simon of Cyrene today, helping carry the crosses of those around us.Read More -
All the parts that make up the whole
March 26, 2024Erica Smith, Executive Director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach, shares in her latest blog about her visit to an orthopedic hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine where she meets surgeons caring for the wounded and delivers a much-needed portable ultrasound machine from Mission Outreach which will help them treat thousands of wounded soldiers and Ukrainian citizens.Read More -
Palm Sunday people
March 24, 2024As she participates in Palm Sunday in Lviv, Ukraine, Executive Director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach Erica Smith reflects on Jesus of Nazareth’s journey to the Cross and how we are called to care for people in the Ukraine and all around the world that are “sweating invisible blood.”Read More -
Glimmers of war through a veil of normalcy
March 23, 2024Erica Smith, Executive Director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach, shares in her latest blog about her stay in Lviv, Ukraine where she meets and has dinner with local mental health providers who share their experiences helping those devastated by war and how they prevail through tragedy.Read More -
Ukraine! Why are you going to Ukraine?
March 22, 2024Follow along as Erica Smith, Executive Director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach, travels to Ukraine to listen and learn how Mission Outreach can further assist health care providers faced with overwhelming circumstances.Read More -
CHA Webinar on Critical Healthcare and Mental Health Challenges in Ukraine Amid Ongoing Conflict
November 06, 2023Erica Smith, MPH, Executive Director of Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach, recently contributed to a podcast from Catholic Health Association to discuss the ongoing collaborative efforts to support the Ukrainian people, drawing upon the collective strength of organizations such as ICMC, CHA, HSHS, and other Catholic partners.Read More -
Mission Outreach on CHA Podcast: Lessening environmental impacts and how to donate material goods
October 13, 2023Erica Smith and Bruce Compton, CHA senior director of GlobalHealth, discuss lessening environmental impacts and how to effectively and safely donate material goods.Read More -
What are we doing on this mountain?
August 20, 2023First, and most important – the luggage arrived on Friday afternoon! I’m pretty sure both Darin and Ratish hugged their suitcases at the airport, but I wasn’t there and neither of them admitted to doing so. Seriously, though, they handled several days of missing luggage with a lot of grace and patience.Read More -
Welcome to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania!
August 17, 2023We arrived in Moshi, Tanzania – Kilimanjaro – yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon. It had been 46 hours since our travel began in St. Louis, with a huge debacle that resulted in an unexpected overnight layover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ratish, Darin and I made it through customs with 300 hikers only to discover the luggage belonging to Ratish and Darin wasn’t there.Read More