Jamie Farrington was born into a fine Christian home and lived with his parents and sister in Lakeside California, east of San Diego. San Diego is the hub of the extended family where relatives from both sides of the family reside. When Jamie was 10 years old, the family moved to rural Alsea, Oregon to get away from the big city. He spent his formative years on a small farm with a large garden, horses, cows, and farm chores. His father taught him the electrical trade. His mother taught him how to cook, can and preserve food. He excelled in the finer aspects of country living, such as fishing, camping and romping in the woods. He developed good friendships which he still enjoys today.

After graduating from Alsea High School in 1982, he moved to Grass Valley in Northern California. For several years, he worked with Christian Encounter Ministries, a residential youth counseling center, and with Discovery Expeditions, an experiential education wilderness program. During this time he also went to school and worked as an EMT. He did plenty of hiking, climbing, paddling, and as he became a man, he accepted his parents’ faith as his own.

It was during this time that he and his friend John Yates began to talk about the possibilities of medical training and foreign missions. After much prayer and talking with family and friends, he accepted a scholarship offer by Luke Medical Foundation to train in a medical school abroad.

In 1988, Jamie, at age 24, and John went to medical school at the "Universidad De Montemorelos" in Montemorelos, Mexico as LMF’s first scholarship recipients. During this time they were involved with university doctors in rural village clinics seeing patients most every weekend while in school. In these clinics many of their classmates saw their first patient, took their first blood pressure, made their first diagnosis, gave their first shot. The students were from nursing, laboratory, dental, and theology schools. The idea was to serve and learn. He has described this period of time as joyful, tearful years that he would not trade for anything.

After medical school in 1993, a year of internship was completed at a small mission hospital called "Buen Pastor" in San Quintin, Baja California, Mexico. The area was a booming agricultural and frontier town about 150 miles south of the border. The clinic continues to this day serving the medical, surgical and spiritual needs of the large migrant farming population for free or at a reduced cost to the patient. The next year was spent doing a 12 full months  of Social Service in a small government clinic high in the small mountain village of La Joya De San Diego, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Here the needs of the people were served through the resources of the government clinic and supplemented by support and supplies from LMF and other mission organizations.

The next five years Jamie spent serving people in the field with the help of several different mission organizations. His mission work was made possible by the many relationships he forged during the years of medical school, internship, and social service. He traveled around Mexico, operating a mobile clinic out of the back of his pickup. Roaming the Baja he would stop at a mountain or fishing village for a snack and a soda. During conversation people would learn he was a doctor and invite him into their homes to see a sick mother or child or other loved one. Medical care was exchanged for good conversation, a meal and perhaps a place to sleep. At established clinics, Jamie encouraged the staff, saw patients, calibrated old blood pressure cuffs, blew the cob webs out of ancient EKG machines, fixed an ailing hospital bed and then perhaps slept in it. He was involved in the design, construction, equipping, and operation of clinics. One moment he could be pounding nails and in the next moment, scrubbing in on a C-Section. At one point he was involved with direct patient contact at a drug detox center.

During these years he realized his patients would be better served with advanced training. With the turn of the new century, he entered a residency training program in family medicine. He chose the University of Alabama Selma Family Medicine program because of their small-town feel and an integrated full-spectrum approach to training. Upon completing three years of specialty training he began looking for a place to practice, lamenting the looming loss of his freedom to roam and serve. Before entering the daily practice of clinical medicine he decided on one last adventure…

Jamie traveled north to Alaska, the Arctic, north to Barrow, the most northerly point in the United States. In a small six-bed Indian Health Service hospital serving the native Alaskan population, he discovered a network of traveling doctors known in the industry as Locum Tenens. Over the past several years, Jamie continues to divide his time between his home in Selma, Alabama and working in Alaska in small remote hospitals (known as "bush" hospitals) serving the native Alaskan population. In his free time, he enjoys roaming the world and visiting family.

Quién es Ezequiel?

Soy Mexicano de Nacimiento, de la ciudad de Ensenada Baja California, Mexico, en donde crecí la mayor parte de mi vida. Agradezco la bendición que tuve de criarme en un hogar con valores judeo cristianos pero mi vida cambió cuando entregué mi vida a nuestro Señor Jesucristo, a los 21 años. 

Cuál es mi Motivación?

A esa edad estaba dispuesto a servir a Dios en cualquier lugar que El me quisiera enviar, así fué y ha sido desde ese momento. Actualmente vivo en Tijuana, México y estoy al frente de una Fundación llamada Dental FIladelfia la cual me permite ayudar a mi comunidad a tener mejor salud dental y ese siempre a sido solo un pretexto para compartir las buenas noticias del Evangelio con los que estén dispuestos a recibir el mensaje de salvación.
Siguiendo el mismo propósito que acabo de mencionar también hacemos jornadas de salud en asociación con varias fundaciones internacionales y nacionales como Real Life Ministries - Sonrisa Movil, El Buen Samaritano, Barbers for Baja, Fundacion Siloe, Thousand Smiles, Club Rotario Rosarito, entre otras que se me escapan por mi mala memoria.

Como me involucre con LMF?

Apliqué para la ser becario de LMF cuando inicie mis estudios de postgrado para el diplomado de Implantes dentales en Implantium de México, y despues en la especialidad de ortodoncia en el Instituto para el Desarrollo del Profesional, en México. Después de tener la oportunidad de ser becario de LMF, quiero que mas personas se beneficien con este proyecto de ayuda a estudiantes, porque cambió mi vida, y me refiero especificamente a mi nivel socioeconómico, ahora que tengo una mejor estabilidad financiera puedo ayudar 10 veces mas de lo que lo hacía en el pasado.