GREENVILLE, N.C. — What started as part of Oakmont Baptist Church’s ministry to its next-door neighbors has grown into a free medical clinic that helps people from across North Carolina’s Pitt County.
The church’s approach to missions was transformed after it bought the homes next door — a lot of homes. For some time, church leaders —including pastor Greg Rogers — had been eying the 10-acre Oakmont Square apartment complex that adjoins its property. The church was landlocked, and the apartment property looked like space for growth.
“We thought we’d mow them to the ground, build all sorts of church buildings, parking spaces and so on,” Sylvia Fuller, the clinic organizer, said recently. “But God apparently had different ideas.”
Oakmont Baptist Church started its clinic with a volunteer contingent of medical professionals.
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After the church and the previous owners reached a deal in 2007 on the 112-unit complex, those “other ideas” began to take shape.
Eddie Hammett of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina coached the congregation on becoming more missional. Members soon realized that the apartments offered tremendous opportunities.
Oakmont Square is a modestly priced complex that houses many “working poor” families. “We were suddenly landlords,” Fuller recalled. “We wanted to figure out how best to serve those people, and how to show them that we are different. We realized we don’t have to leave the country to do missions.”
Now, the church’s outreach centered on the apartments includes work with at-risk families, college students and senior adults, childcare, tutoring, Bible study, a community garden, meals and other activities. Layne Rogerson, the church’s community center minister, lives with her family in the complex, where she is immersed in its daily life.
The clinic, one part of that broad ministry, grew out of one of Hammett’s coaching sessions. Church members sat at tables according to their professions, and at the medical table where Fuller, a registered nurse, was sitting, “our clinic was born,” she said.
“We started by just starting,” Fuller said. “We talked about it some, but there comes a time when you can talk something to death, and you just have to get going.” So with a small volunteer contingent of medical professionals, “we just started,” in April 2011.
Oakmont’s clinic provides check-ups, advice, medications and some first aid.
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The clinic opened in the apartment complex’s community room but soon outgrew that space. Now the clinic operates one Sunday afternoon each month in the church’s fellowship hall, where shower curtains are hung from the ceiling to give patients privacy. “It’s sort of like a M*A*S*H* unit,” Fuller said. “Everything is temporary. Our dream is to have a standalone place. “
More doctors and medical professionals participate now, many of whom are not members of the church. A pharmacist who is a church member donates over-the-counter supplies such as aspirin, ibuprofen and vitamins and provides affordably-priced prescription medicines. Patients are given prescriptions and vouchers to that pharmacy, along with a map and a Bible verse. The pharmacy bills the church monthly for what’s dispensed.
The clinic provides check-ups, advice, medications and some first aid. It brings in people from local and state agencies to help families sign up for such services as food stamps. “And if we get a chance to pray with these people, we do,” Fuller said.
She recalled a young Hispanic man who came to the clinic, family in tow, with dangerously high blood sugar. He was diabetic but did not understand his condition or have supplies to deal with it. Fuller and other clinic volunteers got him what he needed, educated him and visited his home between clinics. “We had kind of a sit-down with him and told him ‘You’ve got a long life to live, your children need you,’ ” she said. “Now he’s on the straight and level.”
Workers direct patients elsewhere if the clinic can’t meet their medical needs, and they try to make sure that patients who already have doctors and prescriptions aren’t using clinic resources. They don’t deal with insurance; few of the patients have it.
Word of mouth, starting with apartment residents, has been more than enough to bring patients into the clinic. Worrying about people not getting follow-up care, the clinic now deals with patients from Pitt County only, but workers help people who come from farther away find a free clinic closer to home.
Still, an average of 40 — and as many as 63 — people of all ages show up for the monthly clinics. “The number of needy people in the county is staggering,” Fuller said. “It’s a little bit more than I can do, which means that I recognize that the Lord knows what has to be done. It’s a beautiful definition of ministry to see these people come and smile and be so glad to see us again.”
Fuller said she’s happy to talk to anyone interested in starting a free clinic. “You just have to start,” she said. “The Lord grows things if you just get it started.”
Linda Brinson ([email protected]) is a Religious Herald contributing writer, based in Madison, N.C.