For me, LEAP has been an amazing journey. I have seen people rise to their best and overcome seemingly overwhelming odds to transform lives of children who were outcasts. I have seen lives changed in patients, families, and villages. As amazing and beautiful, I have seen many changes in our volunteers – a reemergence of their love for medicine and helping others. Also, I have seen changed hearts in the villages where our patients come from – those who have previously shunned the babies with facial deformities are healed of their ignorance and fear and become great advocates and models for others of seeing deeper than the surface.

The reach of LEAP goes far beyond the individual mission. We partner with local medical communities to lift them up in every way we can. We do this through service, teaching, and provision. We have built operating rooms in Central India and Zimbabwe, a medical clinic in Mexico, have helped in the formation of a medical clinic in Uganda, a school/church/medical clinic on the border of Thailand/Laos, and a beautiful pediatric ward in Haiti.

For me, LEAP is service, but it is also much more. The gift of grace goes out to our patients through surgical transformation that they could not get on their own, in the same way saving grace comes to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In LEAP, I see a true manifestation of the love of Christ and a true reflection of Christ’s nature. Despite what religion has done from time to time to distort things, Christ came to sacrificially give of himself to help others – to help everyone. When Christ died on the cross, there were no Christians. He came for everyone.

You certainly don’t have to be a Christian to want to help others, and I would argue that this fact points to us all being created by one loving God. Faith is not the most important thing for everyone who volunteers with LEAP, and it is a great example of how believers and nonbelievers can work side by side to make the world a better place.

Thousands of incredible individuals have come together, in different seasons of their lives, to transform the lives of thousands of patients, mostly children, around the world – this is LEAP. There have been incredible obstacles that have fallen away by the persistent hard work of many dedicated individuals and God’s grace. When people step forward to become a part of LEAP, we are leaving much of our individual selves behind and functioning on a plane that elevates all of us to the highest level of excellence and service.

We have worked tirelessly to put together the best leadership and leanest but most efficient administrative staff. Our young medical leaders are impassioned with dedication, service, and compassionate towards helping others. I am convinced that LEAP will be an even greater organization after my leadership wanes. That is what I want my legacy in LEAP to be – “he worked tirelessly to make sure LEAP was even better after he was gone”.

As a person, I will never be able to fully explain the complexity of God’s creation or the miracle of Christ; but hopefully, I have demonstrated a living faith. To me, LEAP is humanitarian service at its best, but it is also worship to our Creator.