Depending on God

When I arrive at the clinic this morning I walk over to Wisdom’s office. Wisdom has worked at the clinic since it opened. He is the kind of guy who can make the atmosphere instantly calm just by walking into a room. It’s his understanding, non-judgmental, easy-going nature that makes him so perfectly cut out for his job as a counselor for patients who have HIV.

I tell him the story of what happened yesterday when I got home, after talking with him about the current serious problems the clinic is facing and assuring him I would pray.  I tell him how 8-year old Sage showed up at my door, and how we prayed together for the impossible situation. Of how she asked how much money the clinic needed. I told her I wasn’t sure the exact amount, but that it was a lot. Really a lot. “I’m going to do something a little crazy. Be right back,” she announced. She runs next door and comes back a few seconds later with her change purse. She pours out all the coins she has, then carefully adds them up and gives them to me. The amount is a grand total of 370F, not even 1 US dollar. “Give it to the clinic and tell them this is from me,” she says. So matter-of-fact. So undeterred by the huge need.

And who am I to tell her it doesn’t make sense? Jesus fed well over 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. So I hand the money to Wisdom in a bright pink envelope and tell him the story. We can’t help smiling, knowing that we have been taught something really special about what it means to trust God with the childlike faith that He so desires. Wisdom says he will share the story with the rest of the staff to encourage them, and that he will tell people at church on Sunday. And from this attitude of faith, the impossible doesn’t seem quite so impossible. Because we are thinking about the God who we are praying to, as we continue to pray for this situation that is just so out of our hands – the God of the impossible. We are relying on Him to provide, so that His work here will continue.

Because this clinic is God’s work. Our church is filled with people who started coming because they were invited when they first came to the clinic for help. The clinic is a place that is known for its caring staff; the warm and inviting way that each person who comes to the clinic's doors is taken care of. It is a place that keeps people from spending all of what little savings they might have on special charms for protection and healing, and resorting to witch doctors for cures and remedies for their sicknesses. We’ve even had witch doctors come to the clinic, which is an amazing testimony by itself! Everyone in need receives help here, and no one is turned away.

What's more, the clinic has such a high success rate of healing and return visits that national programs have asked what this clinic is doing differently. Other clinics started following our clinic’s example of investing in social services, a non-income generating job that exists to help people through issues that medicine can’t solve. Issues like dealing with the social stigma attached to people with HIV, and how to tell their spouse or family that they have the disease. Patients are also told why their ARV medicine is so important to take, even when they start to feel healthy again – something that many other medical facilities here don’t bother to explain. The counselors here teach people that their disease doesn’t define them. Most importantly, they tell patients that they are a person who God loves and who Jesus died for. And patients have come to trust and respect these wonderful people who work in our social services department. This place that is safe and confidential and where they don’t feel judged.

There are even HIV support groups that have developed through the help of the clinic, which meet either at the clinic or at peoples houses. One of my favorite stories I’ve heard was when a group of people from all different people groups gathered for such a support meeting. The rich sat next to the poor; there was young and old, different languages and cultures all mixed together. Among them was a rich Anyi man. Here was a man who had every right in society to look down on those around him. He had a high social status, a deserving and prideful attitude. He stood up from his seat next to a few poor old Dyula women.  And with tears in his eyes, he said something that no one would ever had expected him to say. “It just feels so good to be in a place where everyone is just like me.”

I can only imagine being there to witness that.  One of those moments that just leaves you in awe, thinking, “God...this is Your work...wow.”

And now, the clinic is in danger of having to stop HIV care.

The situation is something like this. The clinic is in a partnership with another organization that provides funding for the clinic’s activities. A short while back, after agreeing on a budget and signing the contract, the organization cut the amount. By a lot. People would have to work without pay to make ends meet, in order to continue seeing patients and investing in HIV care. And they have. But if this wasn’t hard enough, they were recently told that this amount (which wasn’t even enough to make it until this October) now had to be enough to make it until March of next year. Basically meaning that the clinic would have to run with no funding for 6 months. Basically meaning that the situation is impossible.

For us, that is. Which is why I am asking for prayer. Because nothing is impossible for God. I believe that He hears our prayers. I believe that He knows our problems. I believe that He cares. Even in the past few months alone, I have seen God answer prayers in situations where I have no idea what to do and so I just pray. I have experienced Him providing in amazing ways. I know He is able.

And really, this situation is an opportunity - to depend fully on God for the clinic’s needs. It’s one thing to say that we trust God to provide our needs while relying on other people. I know I am guilty of it. Sometimes I think it can even happen without intending to rely on someone or something other than God. But the situation now is simple. We need a miracle. We need God's gracious help. We have no options but Him. Please pray with us that God will come through in this situation like only He can!

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
 – Ephesians 3:20-21