The idea is to train “church medics” to promote basic medical care in the congregations. I believe that the best hope for Haiti is to work through the churches, which is more stable than government or any other institution, to address the country’s profound problems.

When I was passing through the Miami airport on my way back from Haiti on Monday, the immigrations officer remarked on how beat up my passport looked. Indeed, this was the fifth trip this year, and the third one to Haiti. Battered by trips to Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Peru, Mexico, Panama and Ukraine over the last few years, my passport is pretty ragged. No rest for it, though. Today I mailed it off again to get a visa to visit a sensitive country in Southeast Asia in January.

Why all the travel? It’s because medical missionaries are like hired guns on the old T.V. westerns. When there’s a disaster, or churches want to expand into unreached territories, medical missions teams have an instant invitation. When the precious message of the Gospel is combined with compassionate medical care, heads turn.

HAITI:
Such was the case with Haiti last week. I and a team of 13 others traveled to Port-au-Prince to conduct clinics at Reformation Hope, a church / school / orphanage facility led by Haitian-American pastor Jean Paul. We cared for around 800 people in 5 1/2 days of clinics at the church, and did health surveys for 30 orphans. We handed out around $2000 worth of medicines and showed the Jesus Film to many who came.

Conditions for the team were spartan– a concrete floor in the school to sleep on, cold showers, toilets that didn’t work well. But the team did not complain. Our trip took an unexpected turn as riots broke out in Port-au-Prince concerning a disputed election in the middle of the week. Barricades on the streets meant that we and airport employees could not get to the airport and airplanes were grounded. Rather than wait for an uncertain departure, Pastor Jean Paul assisted us in driving for ten hours to another airport in the Dominican Republic.

Limited room in the van meant that team members had to leave many possessions behind. The border crossing was chaotic. The van air conditioner broke down, tires went flat and the transmission was on life support. We arrived an hour after our flight left, necessitating spending the night at the airport and arriving home two days late. Again, no complainers in this tough team.

Would I go to Haiti again? Absolutely yes! In fact, Pastor Paul has invited medical types to come teach health topics to students at the Bible college that meets at his church. The idea is to train “church medics” to promote basic medical care in the congregations. I believe that the best hope for Haiti is to work through the churches, which is more stable than government or any other institution, to address the country’s profound problems.

To view a collection of pictures of the trip, see web page: http://bit.ly/eby2mF

UKRAINE – ALL IN THE FAMILY

The “dynamic duo” of Rev. Paul Alexander (not exactly Batman) and Yours Truly (Wiley Smith, playing Robin) traveled to Kherson, Ukraine in October at the request of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of that town. This young church is like a rose growing out of a concrete slab. Kherson, on the southern Black Sea coast, has not progressed as rapidly as other towns in sweeping out the bleakness left over from the communist era. The young families of the church there, however, have progressed to the point of wanting to know how to raise their children to know a better life.

Over five evenings of talks, Rev. Alexander shared the timeless wisdom of the Bible as it relates to husband, wife and children. I covered the things that parents need to know to keep their children healthy and safe. The audience had opportunity to practice lifesaving techniques to assist choking children through Basic Pediatric Life Support.

Another mission for me was to visit the town orphanage to assist the pediatrician who works there, Dr. Lyudmilla. Donations of medicines and supplies were greatly appreciated by this doctor who cares for 250 orphans with scanty resources. She persuaded me to give a talk to the orphanage staff and teenage orphans about how to avoid two kinds of viral illness- influenza and HIV. Ukraine has a high HIV infection rate, around 2% of the population. The take-home point was that avoiding this disease is possible with a life where devotion to Christ replaces harmful lifestyles and addictions. For a video of a dance performed by orphanage children, see this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Yhb7pLkMU

In November, some of Ukraine came to us at our home in Georgia. Viktor and Sveta Lukoshkin from Belgorod, Ukraine came to visit and go with us to the MTW Global Missions Conference in Chattanooga. Viktor and Sveta manage the Christian Clinic in Belgorod. My first few mission trips in the 1990’s were to assist in this clinic’s formation. There are more opportunities for Christian medical professionals to go to Ukraine and make relationships with the medical community there through seminars and information exchanges

BACKYARD MISSIONS:
The doors that can be opened through medical missions are not all overseas. For fifteen months now, Grace Medical Outreach has operated in Dalton, Georgia to provide home-based primary medical care for those who fall through the cracks in the local medical care system. So far this year, Grace Medical has provided 413 patient visits at no cost for 156 registered patients. We’ve also had free clinics at local schools that have assisted another 300 patients.

An example is a patient named Jonathan. He is a 46 year old man who has had multiple stays in the hospital over the last year for complications of diabetes and pancreatitis. Unemployed, uninsured, and without helpful relatives, he was failing to get the primary medical care he needed to stabilize his health. Although his medical condition is still fragile, my visits to him in his rural home have helped. Jonathan enjoys my visits to his rural home, prayer time, and watching videos of Grace Presbyterian church services. Please pray for Jonathan and patients like him, that they may break into a new life in Christ and enjoy better health.

A breakthrough came last month when our local hospital agreed to provide discounted laboratory services for Grace Medical patients. Now, volunteer Martha McCoy, a retired medical technologist, assists patients to get lab tests.

Thanks to all who have contributed to Grace Medical Outreach. Please pray for the future of our program in Dalton. The ideal situation would be to have a nurse assisting and a second missions-minded health care provider to share the practice. There is opportunity to assist Mission to North America to form a P.C.A. disaster medical relief system in the U.S. in tandem with a disaster relief warehouse to be constructed in Dalton.

For more information about Dr. Smith’s work and find out how you can be of support, contact him at [email protected]