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TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) — For the past month, Dr. Matt Misner and his family have slept, eaten, worked and played on their home floor.
They sold all their furniture as they prepare for a four-year commitment to the Comboni Lay Missionaries program, the Muskogee Phoenix (http://bit.ly/1Ks7tfm ) reported.
Misner, his wife, Dr. Karissa Misner, and their two daughters Lydia, 6, and Violet, 3, are leaving for a half-year orientation near Chicago.
After that, they don't know.
"This isn't an overnight decision," said Matt Misner, a pediatrician who had practiced in Muskogee. "We're not guaranteed anything. We don't even know where our site is. We should know by the end of this month."
Misner said Paul Weaver, the mission program director, told the family "he is 95 percent confident it will be in Latin America."
Misner said he and his wife will be physician missionaries for three and one-half years. He said they possibly could serve in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, near the Guatemalan capital, Ecuador, or an arid area near Trujillo, Peru.
"We feel blessed and honored to be able to practice medicine in an area that's under-served," said Karissa Misner, D.O, who specialized in rehabilitation at EASTAR Health System. "I consider it a blessing to serve people who really need our help."
Matt Misner said they want their young daughters to become sensitive to people who are less fortunate.
"I have my own fears, but I keep focused on the 'why' of why we're doing this," he said. "That is because our children are going to be culturally sensitive. They will be sensitive to the poor. They're going to be able to respect the benefits we have in the states. Hopefully, this will change their outlook on life for the rest of their days. I know, for me, it has."
However, he acknowledged that, as a parent, his daughters' safety remains in the back of his mind.
"Nothing is 100 percent," he said. "But Paul Weaver, the director — we know that when he sticks us at a site, he not only has been at the site himself, but he has gone back and forth, back and forth assuring familial protection. His track record with other families includes two who are out there now. They have absolutely no qualms."
Misner said he also has faith in his and his wife's experience in medicine.
"As a pediatrician, if anything, I will be able to stabilize my children and get them out," he said. "My wife is a physician. She knows medicine."
Misner said they talk to their daughters each night about the journey. He said the girls tell them one thing positive they look forward to and one thing they are afraid of.
"And we discuss it," he said.
The girls take different approaches to stepping out into the unknown, Misner said.
"Violet, at 3, she basically jumps in," he said. "Lydia is kind of a worrier. We took her up to Chicago, let her see the priest and the school she'll go to. She knows in her mind where she is going."
The Misners know they're stepping out in faith.
Faith is why they are going.
"I love the Lord," Karissa Misner said. "I want to practice in a foreign country, in a way I cannot practice in the United States."
Matt Misner traces his desire to do overseas mission work to growing up in a Catholic family that cared for the less fortunate.
"Since I was a kid, my mom used to take us out and serve the poor," he said. "She was a school teacher in eastern Tennessee, she used to take school children home with her at least one per month. We lived in Knoxville and we would treat them, take them to a circus or a carnival. That sort of thing instilled the importance of helping."
Misner recalled working at soup kitchens and other charities while he was in high school He took his first overseas mission trip — to Guatemala — while attending Loyola University.
Karissa and Matt Misner met while students at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.
"Through med school, we did medical mission runs," Matt Misner said.
They initially moved to Oklahoma to work at St. Francis Health System in Tulsa. Matt Misner said he joined the National Health Corps and worked at W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah. Karissa Misner got a job at EASTAR.
In May, Matt Misner began working at the Children's Clinic in Muskogee.
During this time, they were praying and discerning about doing missionary work, Misner said. He said they heard about the Comboni Lay Missionaries from a mutual friend. Founded in 1857 by St. Daniel Comboni, an Italian priest and missionary, the program sends missionaries to 40 countries around the world, according to the program's website.
Karissa Misner said she had been told that when children are younger, they adapt better.
"This kind of opened the door for us," she said.
Since committing to the program, the Misners have sold their furniture and put their house on the market.
"It was not an easy decision for us. It's easy to say you're going to do something, then actually do it," Karissa Misner said. "I had to leave a job I really liked at EASTAR. I had a job that was practically perfect for me. We had to sell our furniture and leave our friends."
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Information from: Muskogee Phoenix, http://www.muskogeephoenix.com
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