Dr. Esohe Iyamu-Osagiede, MD

I am a Board Certified Family Physician serving as a full-time Missionary Physician to Honduras.

I was born and raised in Houston, TX. I am blessed with amazing Nigerian parents who taught and showed by example what it means to be in a relationship with Jesus. Despite serving in the church and in various missions since the age of 7, I struggled with my faith and identity. At the age of 14, I began to contemplate suicide. That summer, while at a Christian camp, I had a supernatural encounter. I went to the altar and began crying out to God in a state of complete despair and hopelessness. Suddenly, I felt this overwhelming love. At that moment, I knew, without a doubt, that the love I felt was my Father’s love for me. However, at the same time, I felt heartbreak. The heartbreak of a parent watching their child suffer. I was called His daughter and given such a blinding hope for my future that it still drives me today. It wasn’t until this moment that missions became my calling and not …just a religious duty. I was compelled to find the hopeless and show them the hope that can only be found through Jesus Christ. Paul said it best. It was and still is like a fire shut up in my bones.

In high school, I developed my passion for science and medicine, which led to my combining medicine with my mission calling. In 2012, I had the opportunity to go on a medical mission trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras as a pre-med student. There is such a feeling of peace when you are doing exactly what God wants you to do when he wants you to do it. It was during that trip that I knew international medical missions was the path God set for my future.

In February 2016, I attended the M3 Conference as a medical student and heard of the Samaritan’s Purse Post Residency Program. On April 26, 2016, I journaled that I would apply to a residency program offering global health opportunities and then apply for the Samaritans Purse Post Residency Program or do ‘whatever God tells me to do when the time comes.’ I was blessed to be trained in a rural FM residency program. It offered international rotations and encouraged my calling for medical missions. Over the 4 years since the conference, I investigated other routes to my calling, including hospitalist medicine with mission trips during my off weeks. Nothing resonated with me. Hearing my co-residents talk about their plans for fellowship, hospitalist medicine, or opening their own practice, I realized that the time had come to decide, with God’s guidance, my next step.

I requested a weekend off in February 2020 to go to the M3 conference at Lakewood church. My plans were to get more information about the Post Residency Program and use this conference as a time to make a decision. I also, the year prior, requested to go to Honduras via my residency program’s established Honduras rotation. After my first international mission trip to Honduras, I knew I would return. Due to scheduling logistics, my trip to Honduras was set to be at the same time as the 2020 Mobilizing Medical Missions Conference. With my plans of using the conference as a decision-maker gone, I decided to step back and fully entrust this decision to God. Unbeknownst to me, the hospital where I was to rotate in Honduras very recently became affiliated with Samaritan’s Purse. I not only found out this information while there, but I also met two Samaritan’s Purse Biomedical Engineers who gave amazing accounts of what they have experienced during their travels to various Samaritan Purse missionary hospitals. During a conversation, a long-term missionary nurse at the hospital said, ‘long term missions is for you if there is literally nothing else you can be happy doing. ’I realized then the truth of that statement was the reason I could not decide on any other route apart from going directly into long-term missions. I applied and was accepted into the Samaritan’s Purse / World Medical Mission’s Post-Residency Program. I was sent out in 2021 after graduating from residency. Due to a lack of available mission hospitals for which I could serve, after a year in Honduras, I made the decision to change sending organizations in order to remain in my mission country. I am currently a full-time missionary physician to the country of Honduras, serving under the organization Commission To Every Nation (CTEN). In addition to full-time service at Clínica Betania in Siguatepeque, Honduras, as Founder & CEO of Harvest Health Missions, I facilitate short-term medical brigades in a way that provides for continuity of care alongside partner organizations throughout Honduras. We also provide regular school wellness checkups for three local primary schools and a pre-medical internship program.

I am excited and hopeful for all that God will do in the many years to come.