AdventHealth Porter team delivers care and compassion in Peru

DENVER, Colo. — A team of 10 AdventHealth Porter employees recently traveled to the Peruvian Amazon, continuing a 20-year partnership with Clínica Adventista Ana Stahl in Iquitos.

Their mission was to bring essential health care to communities with limited access to medical services.

The team -- made up of providers, nurses, physical therapists and pharmacy staff -- set up mobile clinics in remote villages along the Amazon River, offering checkups, medications and preventive care.

For Antavar Stinson, a float pool RN at AdventHealth Porter, the trip was his first international mission experience.

“Nothing quite prepared me for what I encountered in Iquitos,” he said. “Peru was a completely new chapter.”

Stinson worked in triage, often the first point of contact for patients.

“You’re the first face someone sees when they’ve walked sometimes for hours just to receive care,” he said. “That carries weight.”

In a single day, the team treated about 130 patients -- more than 80 of them children.

One case left a lasting impression.

“A child had a serious burn on his foot,” Stinson said. “Watching him leave in better shape than he arrived is something I’ll carry with me. That moment reminded me why I became a nurse.”

“These mission trips are meaningful because they foster connection, purpose and impact on a deeply human level,” said Amanda Mahoney, travel coordinator for Rocky Mountain Region Global Missions. “Many volunteers describe the experience as life-changing.”

For patients, the impact extends beyond clinical care.

“You’re not just providing care, you’re standing in a gap that has existed for generations,” Stinson said. “They could feel that we were there out of genuine love.”

The experience also reshaped how he approaches his work back home.

“In those villages, it was just a nurse, a doctor and a patient. That’s the purest form of this work,” he said. “It reminded me that presence is a clinical skill.”

AdventHealth Porter’s next Peru mission trip is scheduled for July 30-Aug. 8, 2027.

“If you’re on the fence, go,” Stinson said. “You’ll come back changed in ways you can’t experience anywhere else.”