Living in Peru : your everyday companion

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Dr. Catherine Bishop, a physician from physician from Chillicothe, Ohio, has visited Peru four times, and will never forget a 10-year-old girl she met in the Peruvian jungle, who suffers from severe deformities.

"You saw the want and desire in her eyes to be more than a crippled child," Bishop recalls.

Bishop, a medical staff member at Adena Health System who practices at Adena Senior Health, was honored as the 2009 Philanthropist of the Year by the American Academy of Family Physicians; she was also honored (a few months earlier) as the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) Philanthropist of the Year.

Nine years ago, Dr. Bishop became part of the NGO InterNational, a nondenominational, Christian-based group that provides short-term missions inside the US and to about 10 countries around the world.

One of the group's purposes is to help expand churches in the areas it serves, and one of the ways that is being done is with the help of doctors and dentists.

"As people reach out for medical and dental help, church leaders are on hand to provide spiritual help," she says, as she recalls she has been on seven mission trips to India, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

Bishop downplays the recognition, insisting more people should look for ways to help others.

(Condensed from The Chillicothe Gazzette)

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