kenyanmissionaryathomespring05

SMI Finds Local Challenge

Originally published in the Fall 2005 edition of Healing Waters

In previous years, Siloam staff physician, Morgan Wills , has used the Summer Medical Institute (SMI) to organize a team of providers and students to work with missionaries overseas in Peru . When the SMI leadership realized that a return trip to Peru was not possible this year, they decided to conduct a two-week outreach right here in Nashville .

Siloam, Vanderbilt Medical Campus Outreach (MCO) and Grace Community Church joined SMI in this Nashville outreach to the Clairmont Apartments. The complex is located off of Murfreesboro Road and houses more than 280 families, nearly 1,000 people. Also joining the team was Pastor and Mrs. Dagoberto Figueroa, Baptist missionaries from Columbia , who came to Nashville with their two daughters to minister to Hispanic immigrants. The Figueroa’s ministry and service is focused on the Clairmont and several other large complexes on the Eastside of Nashville and in Franklin .

Most of the residents at the Clairmont are Hispanic immigrants from Central America . They come to the U.S. to try to earn money for their families back home, but many are just struggling to survive. They have no health insurance; few social support services and most do not speak English. Some of the other Clairmont residents are refugees from Somalia . Many of the Somalian refugees are Bantus, several hundred of whom are being resettled in the U.S. through agencies like World Relief and Catholic Charities. They have lived in refugee camps for years and many arrive malnourished and in poor health.


Morgan Wills, MD	Nicole Kendzierski, FNP

Dr. Morgan Wills and Siloam Clinic Manager, Nicole Kendzierski, NP, served as co-leaders of this special project. The theme was “Living on the Borders” which was taken from the title of a book that encourages Christians to learn from ethnic immigrant communities what it means to live as “aliens and strangers” in this world. In order to establish the first-ever, temporary, satellite branch of the Siloam Family Health Center meant preparing volunteers (providers, interpreters and others) for “living on the borders.”

Project results:

Treated 325 patients (some multiple times) over the course of two weeks.
Connected most of these patients to the resources of the Bridges to Care program (which supplies discounted meds and services to Davidson County ’s uninsured).
Performed dozens of TB skin tests on high risk patients.
Administered more than 100 immunizations to children in need.
Helped lead more than 30 patients and residents to accept Jesus Christ and become a part of a local, Hispanic church.
Trained a dozen medical students in a cutting-edge clinical “laboratory” for whole-person community-based health care.
Collaborated closely with VU nursing faculty and five students who, as a part of their curricular requirement, conducted a comprehensive community health survey of the area we served.
Trained more than 20 new volunteer interpreters for Siloam.
Offered ten holistic “morning report” teaching sessions, led by local and visiting faculty—on such diverse topics as insomnia, ophthalmology, and the biblical basis of psychiatry.
Involved more than 20 volunteer providers (most of whom would not have been able to join an overseas project) in providing part-time, on-site medical care.

Dr. Wills shared the following: “As we learned at the Clairmont, stories are especially helpful to connect with immigrants from non-Western cultures. Space will not permit all the stories I would love to share, but I can offer you some enticing snippets.

“After the first day or two of the project, Pastor Dagoberto Figueroa and his wife Martha came up, their eyes brimming with tears of joy, thanking us for being God’s vehicles of grace. They had spent more than two years laboring in this mission field with little fruit to show for it. Seeing the community respond to the tangible medical services, the loving presence of our group, and the words of Life from the Scripture was ‘a miracle.’

“Most participants were both troubled and blessed by the opportunity to encounter firsthand the gritty realities of life in a poor housing complex just 10-15 minutes from their front door. Two bedroom apartments often housed 8-12 tenants, a couple of pieces of furniture and perhaps even a few baby chickens underfoot. Prostitution, drugs, loneliness, poverty, and some hopelessly abusive relationships made routine medical care an afterthought for many.

“At the same time we were privileged to meet and care for patients like “Jose” from Honduras . Because we were working at the same site every day, we were able to speak about a number of things that lay behind his presenting complaint. “Jose” spoke of his arduous trek here via Mexico , his life as an immigrant, and his struggles as a working husband and father of three. A former member of a Latino gang who continues to struggle with the lure of drugs and alcohol, “Jose” carefully considered the good news of Jesus Christ, but was skeptical based on his observations of some hypocritical Christians in his life. However, after a week’s exposure to the project—and hearing his eight year old son chastise him for drinking again—he prayed with us for the grace to join ‘God’s gang’ and began a friendship with Pastor Dagoberto.

“A Mexican patient came in one day complaining of fatigue. We discovered that he was in kidney failure. After a brief hospitalization, in which he refused dialysis, we were able to counsel the patient medically and spiritually, supply some initial medications, and help make arrangements with the local church for him to return to Mexico to be with his family.

“One day we were able to care for a large number of Somali Bantu refugees who live at the Clairmont. It was a joy to watch members of this relatively primitive but delightful people group slowly build trust in the health care system as we demonstrated loving service with flexibility, personal touch, and a desire to learn from them. One veteran volunteer of Grace Community’s Bantu ministry at the Clairmont said that the July 4 th BBQ event was the first time she had ever witnessed the Bantu and Hispanics do anything together there!

“From the start, this was a collective effort of the Body of Christ.

The SMI clinic coordinator, a NP volunteer of Siloam, was between jobs and she worked into the evening to make things flow for everyone else.
Nine different local churches stepped in to provide lunches.
Two David Lipscomb students unexpectedly joined us for key roles on the project. One of these had been my sickest patient as a senior resident six years ago and now wants to go to medical school!”

Most participants agreed by the time the project ended that serving and learning locally about health care ministry may pose a more strategic opportunity for the Kingdom than going overseas. Dr. Wills commented, “As followers of Jesus, we are all called to dwell in the world while retaining ties and loyalty to our true ‘homeland.’ It would be so much more comfortable either to assimilate into the flow of the culture at large or to segregate off into a Christian ghetto. But living and working on the ‘borderlands’ between these extremes is tough! We need each other and the Holy Spirit to do it.”