CIUDAD BOLIVAR, Venezuela (ABP) — It sounds like a logistical nightmare. A 33-person medical team touches down in Venezuela, ready to run a five-day clinic with 41 trunks of medicine, eyeglasses and other supplies — 41 trunks that never arrived on the field.
But when customs officers wouldn't release the trunks, brought there by a team from Liberty Park Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, Ala., it turned out to be a perfect opportunity for God to show his power, said David Lucas, business adminstrator for the church. “I don't know how they've done what they've done but God has provided,” he said. “The whole trip has been humbling and full of miracles.”
When time came for the clinic to open and there was no hope of disentangling the trunks from the red tape in time to use them, team members pooled their personal funds and — combined with funds from the church — were able to purchase about $2,000-worth of medicine from a local pharmacy.
“They filled over 2,000 prescriptions with what they were able to buy,” said Lucas.
And, even more significantly, they saw 170 come to know Christ, he said. “They are coming back in awe of what's happened.”
After the clinic closed, the team headed into a smaller town near Ciudad Bolivar to do an evangelistic push, even though all their materials and the 750 Spanish Bibles they had brought with them were stuck with the unreleased supply trunks.
When they got to the town, a Gideon who had heard they were coming met them with 100 Spanish New Testaments. They gave away 99 there and later, while on a cable car in Caracas, shared with the driver the 100th Bible. “They were forced to fully rely on God's strength,” Lucas said. “The team is firmly convinced that God never intended for those trunks to be used on this trip — that all of the work that was done to prepare these trunks was meant to be used later.”
Baptists in Venezuela are still working hard to get the trunks released for use by local missionaries. During the clinic, eye perscriptions were given out with the hope that missionaries could give out the glasses once they were released.
“Different twists happen all the time, but this is the longest we've ever had supplies held up in Venezuela. We're hopeful they'll be released,” said Reggie Quimby, director of the office of global partnerships for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. “I don't know how they've done what they've done but God has provided.”
— Grace Thornton is a correspondent for The Alabama Baptist.