Open Doors and New Things Growing

Ya’ll, one of the things most exciting and most heavy on my heart has been what God has done in growing a health ministry in our area.

Many of you read our newsletters in 2021 as we reeled from having taken our neighbor’s baby to the hospital and watched the family grieve as she passed away. Two weeks later Isaac administered CPR as another unresponsive neighbor, the father of Judah’s best bud, passed away. This was on top of Isaac having administered CPR for a drowning kiddo at a church baptism a couple of years before.

At that time, we had a newly built clinic building two doors down from our house. A nurse had been coming from America, but her plans changed, and the newly built building stood mostly empty as medical needs swirled around us, a constant reminder of care that I wished was available. I would walk past it and pray, “Lord, would You bring someone to work here? Would You build something here?”

Last term a family came and joined our team, and within their first years, my teammate Noelle encountered some similar experiences with medical emergencies as we had previously encountered. Once I drove to the hospital to meet Noelle as she brought her neighbors, and the two of us wept as the neighbor’s baby passed away. Noelle drove the body and the weeping father home in her car for the burial ceremony. Noelle’s story of encountering suffering and heartbreak and then beginning to partner with local medical workers to offer care at that clinic was posted by TEAM.

For me, it has been amazing to watch this thing start. We still don’t have a doctor or nurse, but Noelle opens the clinic twice a week with a volunteer nurse from the local government health clinic, the same nurse that guided Elly’s leprosy treatment. He and the local church leaders have all expressed their desire to help with the deep medical needs in the love of Christ. The church should care for these things, they say.

While Noelle’s kids play next door in my yard, this team has seen over 300 patients and treated diabetic wounds, burns, allergic reactions, high cholesterol and blood pressure. Through referrals of more serious cases, they’ve seen diagnoses of leprosy, TB, and HIV. We’ve found an outbreak of TB on our campus, with six cases so far that have led to the need to test the rest of campus and seemingly endless barriers to cross in helping people to get tested, diagnosed, and treated. We are in the process of getting a machine that can test for TB in our clinic to help with this struggle.

In one heartbreaking case, a young man of 13 was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was kicked out of his own house in response. One day a mentally ill woman came with a broken arm that was packed with shaved fresh coconut. Poor patients come to our clinic because they know they will be treated with respect and care. Non-Christians come, and it’s an opportunity to welcome them with love.

Our campus kids love and feel accepted by Pak Arnold, our volunteer nurse.

God has literally opened doors and answered prayers and it's SO COOL to see it open and to hear the stories of of care and the mutual burden on the hearts of the missionaries and the local church leader.  However, the need is bottomless. We need a nurse or a doctor to work full time at the clinic. We're looking all over for someone, whether Indonesian or a missionary, to serve. If you know of anyone in medical ministry that is interested, please let us know.

Our team's kids being crazy in our yard while Noelle opens the clinic next door. So great that the kids can be entertained so the moms can be invested in emerging ministry.