Dr. Allan Valladares is a dentist who has served Siguatepeque and its surrounding areas for the last 12 years. However, Dr. Valladares’ clinic is no ordinary dental clinic. When he opened his practice, Dr. Valladares let the various children’s homes in the Siguatepeque area know that he would provide dental work for their children free of charge. He also treats all missionaries, pastors, and widows on the basis that—if they cannot afford his (very reasonable) fees—they can pay whatever they can afford. This is particularly meaningful because Dr. Valladares specializes in root canal dentistry, which is not easily attainable in Honduras. Dr. Valladares performs regular dentistry as well.
Allan also serves regularly on Honduran dental mission teams with his colleagues. They go into poor areas of town or into rural communities on certain weekends, and they provide free dental service there. In addition, two or three times a year, Allan serves as the Honduran dentist to support U. S. missionary dental teams coming to Honduras. The government requires such teams to be overseen by a Honduran dentist.
What inspired Dr. Valladares to become a dentist and to run his practice on this unique basis? The story is quite fascinating. Allan Valladares’ parents were both teens at the time of his birth. Sadly, Allan was born with a severe cleft palate. His case was so severe that there was no doctor in Honduras who had the skill to perform the needed corrective surgery. Even if there had been such a doctor, Allan’s parents could never have afforded the treatment.
The ideal time to do cleft palate repair is before a child is one year old. However, Allan’s situation went untreated until he was over six years old. When he was six, a missionary medical team with Baptist Medical Mission visited the Baptist church that he and his mother attended. The team examined Allan and determined that he would need to be flown to the States for treatment. So at age 7, Allan and his mother flew to the States for his surgery. Unfortunately, because his situation was so severe and because the treatment had not begun earlier, Allan had to receive a series of surgeries over the next ten years. For the first few years, his mother accompanied him to the States. From age 11 on, Allan flew by himself. All of the medical treatment was performed free of charge by Baptist Medical Mission, and they also covered all travel costs.
Over the years, Allan was treated by a number of surgeons and dentists. One of the doctors who treated him let Allan stay at her house while he was in the States. Allan has stayed in touch with her. She is elderly now, but she and her family are like family to Allan. He has also stayed in touch with many of the other doctors, dentists and nurses who treated him. Through the course of these years, Allan decided that he would become a dentist when he became an adult and that he would help poor children and others through his dental practice. Allan applied himself through his school years, and his dream eventually became a reality.
God has blessed Allan’s dental practice, and it has continued to grow. He leases space for his clinic from a local hospital. Recently, he has needed to rent an additional room in the same building to handle his work overflow. He staffs it with a dental hygienist, but he provides oversight in this supplemental office. In order to get this supplemental office up and running, Allan applied to the Society of the Good Shepherd for an interest-free loan to purchase a dental chair. Given the ministry that Allan performs through his dental practice, the Society was happy to furnish him with the needed loan. With the loan, his additional office is up and running, blessing many people who pass through its doors.
David Bercot
The Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210 • (717) 349-7033
Click on the following link if you would care to make a donation to the work in Honduras: Honduras Donations