by Allen and Beverly Berry, Baptist Mid-Missions missionaries
My wife, Beverly, and I serve with Baptist Mid-Missions in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Southern Caribbean). In February we teamed with area church Tabernacle Baptist in Barrouallie to host our first ever medical team outreach.
Fourteen people from Faith Baptist Church, Toms River, New Jersey, and a nurse from New Mexico arrived February 10 for a week of medical ministry. The team was headed by Dr. Larry Gaetano and his wife, Donna. They brought Dr. Tom Rapp, a chiropractor, along with his wife, Linda. Pharmacist Bruce Berryhill and Registered Nurse Rosalie Hall, from New Mexico, also came. One more adult was the gofer. Eight teenagers made up the rest of the crew. All of the team members were trained in registration, taking vital signs, and doing simple eye exams. They were told to be prepared for anything.
The night the team arrived, we had a meeting with them at the church to give some logistic instructions. Two giant flying roaches invaded the premises. A little later that night a man called home, and he told the person at the other end, “Pray for us. We are in the middle of nowhere and pretty far out. . . .” Hey, we have electricity, phones, and Internet access, and we are less than an hour from the capital city and the airport! We even have water that doesn’t need boiling.
Every night the auditorium was transformed into a bedroom, with borrowed mattresses and cots. Before 7:30 a.m. all bedding was put away and the benches were oriented for the clinic. In the afternoon, all the benches were straightened for the evening service. After the service, the room was converted back into a bedroom. Somewhere in there, the place had to be swept and mopped every day.
Each morning from 8:00 to 12:00 we conducted a free medical clinic. Then at 7:00 each night we held an outreach service, using the “Set Sail: Spread the Good News” VBS program from Regular Baptist Press, provided to us by Gospel Literature Services. The team brought decorations, puppets, and a portable stage. We built a lighthouse that was about six feet tall and had a rotating light at the top. (In all our stateside churches, we have never seen a rotating beacon!) Dr. Gaetano did an excellent job teaching the adult class, and his wife taught the children.
During the week, Faith Baptist brought our first patient and left with the last one! That first patient was the doctor’s wife, when she fainted Sunday morning. The last patient was one of the teens who was running a fever the morning the group left. In all, the doctor saw over 321 patients, and we figure over 400 came through to have their blood checked, vital signs checked, and simple eye exams done.
We gave a gospel tract to everyone who came to the clinic. The last two days we led devotions with all the patients in a large group. For the night services we started with about 75 in attendance and ended the last night with 186. Nineteen people made professions of faith, and we hope to follow up on all who registered at the clinic.
The Sunday after the team arrived back home, one of the teens went forward in church to dedicate her life to be a missionary! After 30 years of ministry, we still find that missions teams are more impacted by their visit than are the people they have come to reach.
Next year we are hoping for a return medical team, with an evangelist from our home church conducting evangelistic services every night in a large tent.
