DT News - Canada - Ming Yau, DDS, and family: Doing well by doing good

Robert Selleck, Dental Tribune Canada

Thu. 22 May 2014

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ETOBICOKE, ONTARIO, CANADA: A couple of years ago, Ming Yau, DDS, a general dentist with a practice in Etobicoke, Ontario, approached his wife, Linda, with the idea of a luxury safari vacation to Kenya, filled with side trips to beautiful beaches. Linda, a physician, had a different idea: “How about a mission trip?” Yau wasn’t really receptive, but reluctantly agreed.

So Ming, Linda and sons Matthew, 17, and Thomas, 15, began planning for 11 days with the orphaned, abandoned, abused, desperate and neglected children who find refuge with Mully Children’s Family Homes, a nonprofit with facilities across Kenya.

“It was a life-changing trip,” Yau said. “The experience really brought our family together and gave us a much deeper appreciation for our lives. We go on these missions to help others, yet, in the end, I feel that we benefit the most.”

In Kenya, Ming performed basic dentistry, including fillings and extractions, at one of the organization’s main orphanages — also serving children in the surrounding community. Linda provided basic medical services. Matthew and Thomas helped everywhere they could.

The August 2012 experience made such an impression, the family immediately planned an August 2013 trip, this time to impoverished areas in Asunción, Paraguay. That 10-day trip was with Toronto-based Health Mission Outreach. In Asunción, Matthew and Thomas were struck by the number of children without shoes; so upon their return home they organized a shoe drive that continues today — with more than 700 pairs of shoes already shipped to the areas where the family served. “It’s so rewarding and so fulfilling,” Yau said. “We will continue to do a volunteer trip every year.”

Next up: India in August 2014.

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