“I don’t speak Spanish well but it doesn’t matter. The best feeling in the world is to see a little boy’s face and you smile at him and talk and they talk back and all you hear and all he hears is jibber-jabber back and forth but you still understand each other and laugh then hug and it’s worth a million” said a smiling Kayleen Stedman, a volunteer of four years for St. Andrew’s Children’s clinic in the border town of Nogales, Ariz.

Stedman and dozens of other volunteers continue to lend their time once a month to the clinic that offers free medical care to underprivileged children from the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border the first Thursday of each month.


The clinic is a collaborative effort from a multitude of fronts and runs much like organized chaos--light on the organized, heavy on the chaos.

The language barrier is nearly tangible, and border politics and regulations add to the planning difficulties. Such intricate cooperation of the two countries is becoming more rare.

“This is a bridge across the border at a time when everyone else is building walls,” said Robert Phillips, executive director of St. Andrew’s Children’s Clinic.

St. Andrew’s clinic is a bridge across the border. The bridge is built on the basic human need for health and care, and the volunteers at St. Andrew's clinic save the bridge from collapse each and every month.

From food preparation, to translators, to doctors and nurses, each volunteer plays an equal part in making the clinic a success.


These women offer cheerful faces and helping hands while distributing food, clothes, toys, and other donated items to children and their families. While the courtyard is filled with items in the morning, nearly everything is taken back across the border by the end of the day.

Many volunteers are also involved on non-clinic days.

Stedman helps organize a blender drive at her church to give to families for children with cleft palates who often have trouble eating solid food. St. Andrew’s clinic includes a speech therapy department for recent cleft palate surgery patients.

“Being here makes us more aware of our blessings,” Stedman said.

While the clinic offers the opportunity for the everyday miracle, the reality of the pain and suffering of the impoverished and sick is all too overwhelming.

“After my first time volunteering here, I went home to lay next to my husband, and I just stared at the ceiling thinking because I was so upset,” said volunteer Dorothy Favour. “I didn’t think that I could handle it.”

But the lure of the clinic was as powerful as the look of pain on the faces of the hundreds of innocents that are treated there.


“You see the humility that they have coming here, and you learn humility too,” Favour said.

“It’s hard to explain why it’s so special-- you have to see it yourself.”