“If I cut the patient open, there’s a 50 percent chance he won’t make it,” dentist Miguel Rodríguez told the concerned family members of one of his patients in Angola. “But if I don’t cut him open, he will certainly die.”
The family of the patient stood there, speechless, as Rodríguez prayed silently and decided that he would do his best to save the patient suffering from a massive infection because of a large mouth abscess.
“Bring the patient in,” Rodríguez told his assistants. “I’m going to cut him open.”
For almost a decade Rodríguez and his wife, nurse Maydí Díaz, from Mexico, have made a difference in Angola, a Portuguese-speaking country in Africa. Now, with God’s help, they dream of increasing the health ministries imprint of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Mozambique, another Portuguese-speaking country in the region.
First Experience on the Mission Field
Díaz and Rodríguez, who recently shared their story about their trust in God’s ongoing guidance, met as students at Montemorelos University in Mexico.
As a young graduate of the dental program at Montemorelos, Rodríguez arrived in Huambo, Angola, in February 2012, with the goal of supporting local efforts to launch a health clinic there. He spent 10 months in Huambo before he returned to Mexico to marry Díaz, a graduate of the nursing program.
Now as newlyweds, they received a call to return to Huambo for a two-year stint, “until the clinic was up and running,” they were told.
“Those two years became eight years,” Rodríguez shared. “We opened a dental clinic, and eventually added other services.” These included general medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, pharmacy, and a blood tests lab. “The medical center is now one of the most important in Huambo,” Rodríguez said.
Meanwhile, Díaz supported the initiative as a head nurse, ambulance driver, and clinical assistant. Along the way they also became parents to Obed David (now 11 years old) and Miguel Ángel (7).
A Fruitful Experience
The Adventist clinic in Huambo allowed the missionary family to see the development of the place from the ground up.
“Ninety percent of the equipment we bought for the clinic was funded with the money that the services we offered generated,” Rodríguez explained. “We also developed a close relationship with the government, which donated an ambulance to us.” That vehicle is regularly used to take transport patients to hospitals where they can get the extra care they need, he shared.
They also managed to send two Angolan students to Mexico to get training before coming back to serve in their home country.
An Impasse and a Return to the Mission Field
The Rodríguez family returned to Mexico at the end of 2020, as he dreamed of specializing in prosthodontics at Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon. “There was no way we could afford my school fees, but somehow God provided.”
Rodríguez also shared how challenging it was to be accepted into the specialization program in the first place. “I was eventually told that out of scores of applicants, only six had been accepted into the program,” he shared. “I was happy to find out I was one of them, and I know that when they interviewed me, my experience as a missionary in Angola made a clear difference.”
Rodríguez shared how while he was still studying and didn’t think of returning to the mission field, the family was asked to come back, this time for a new project—open a new clinic in Maputo, Mozambique.
Eventually, the family returned, first to Luanda, where they supported local efforts to add health services to an existing dental clinic. There Rodríguez opened a dental prosthesis laboratory in Luanda, before the family was finally relocated to Maputo in October 2025.
Uprooted and Challenged, but With a Mission
The family acknowledged that the latest change across the width of the continent has not been easy. “We arrived in Mozambique a few months ago, but our heart is still in Angola, where we had our first missionary experience,” Rodríguez shared. “In Angola we learned the ropes and adapted to the local culture. It’s also the country where our children grew up.”
To make matters more challenging, the Maputo Adventist Clinic is still a work in progress, they explained. “When we arrived, the building was not yet ready,” Díaz shared. “Only now are we ready to start purchasing the equipment to furnish the place and get it ready for the official opening.”
Rodríguez agreed. “During our first months I had to fix issues with the electrical power and other structural challenges,” he shared. “Now we can say that most of the hard work is done, even though there is still equipment to purchase and install.”
There are other challenges as well, as Rodríguez hasn’t yet received the government authorization to practice dentistry in Mozambique. “So we are praying and waiting,” Díaz shared.
But in the midst of all the challenges, Díaz highlighted the significance of the project in Mozambique. “The clinic is not yet opened, but it’s already been a blessing. People and church members know that it will be the first Adventist clinic in Maputo,” she shared. “They are telling us, ‘We want that place open as soon as possible, because we need to have a clinic we can trust.’ ”
Leaders Visit the Site
On the morning of May 21, church leaders, including General Conference president Erton Köhler, visited the site of the new clinic. Rodríguez, Díaz, and other future practitioners led the visit, explaining some of the improvements and features of the new facilities, which before equipment implied major infrastructure renovations for MZN$22 million (US$345,000).
Köhler celebrated the initiative, highlighting the role the future clinic will have in supporting the mission of the church. “This is a church built as a clinic,” he told the future clinic staff. “This is not just a clinic; this is a center of influence.”
After encouraging the team and promising to contact Mozambique government officials to kindly request that the missing authorizations be granted as soon as possible, he prayed for the project. “May this be a place that will help many not only to find physical health but also to find Jesus,” he prayed.
A Call and Vocation Confirmed
Díaz emphasized that despite challenges old and new, several experiences she went through lately have confirmed how meaningful their service in the mission field is. She shared the story of an obese woman who recently arrived asking for help. “She was so large and felt so uncomfortable that she walked with difficulty,” Díaz shared. “The woman said she has been through different physicians, Chinese medicine, and even traditional healers, but so far no one had been able to help her. She also thought she might be pregnant.”
Some health studies led Díaz to think that the woman was suffering from fecaliths—a hard, stonelike mass of stool resulting from a poor diet and lack of exercise. With simple diet and lifestyle advice, Díaz helped the woman experience a rapid turnaround. “She is a different person now; she has lost so much weight you can hardly recognize her,” Díaz shared. “She is now attending evangelistic meetings, and she goes around smiling, so happy to finally feel better.”
For Rodríguez, the experience with the man with the massive, infected abscess also confirmed the family’s call to serve in the mission field.
“I cut his mouth open, cleaned, and disinfected it to the best of my abilities, and closed him,” Rodríguez shared. As his team opened the door to take the patient back to his room, Rodríguez saw that the whole family of the man had arrived. “When they saw the patient was alive, everyone bowed their heads as a sign of respect and gratitude,” Rodríguez shared. “That day, at that moment, I had the confirmation I needed. I told myself, ‘Now I know it. It’s for moments like this that we are in the mission field!’ ”
