Mobile clinic—a practicum

Since we had 2 recent mobile clinics canceled due to rain, I decided to post about our very first mobile clinic. Jeff wrote that last year in a newsletter and SIM has now published it on their web-site: www.sim.org. We are planning a clinic for Sunday. The forecast calls for rain.....

Alva sharing Christ

Helping with labs



On a cold winter morning, a handful of local believers and a few SIM workers embarked on a short journey to the community of Santa Ursula. It was to be our first mobile medical/evangelistic clinic. We began the day with a short talk about Jesus, and then as I attended to patients (45 in all), other workers showed the JESUS film.

Every half hour, the film was paused so believers from the nearby village of San Francisco (where our church is located) could talk about what Christ had done in their lives. Their testimonies were so captivating that many people stayed all day, even after patients had been treated, in order to talk further about what they had heard. What was the speakers’ secret?

Earlier in the month, our team in San Francisco had started a leadership training initiative, and our first course was a two-day workshop on evangelism. For the next two weeks, the students practiced their personal testimonies. No wonder they spoke with such clarity, power, and conviction! The clinic was like a practicum for the evangelism class.


Shady (pronounced Sawdee), a high school senior, spoke first. She told what her life had been like before she had met Christ a few months earlier, and how he had changed her. Many in the audience could relate to her pre-Christ life. Next came a father in his 30s; he, too, told how God had changed him and his whole family. In a culture where most husbands are unfaithful or absent, and most children are born to unmarried parents, his family is a bright light. A single mother told how God had transformed her life since she had come to him a few months before.

Each patient received a leaflet I’d written in the Guaraní language that showed clearly and simply how they could put their faith in Christ. When Shady saw one woman leave the clinic with a tract in hand, she asked if they could read it together. Several people gathered around as the Christian teenager and the very needy woman bent their heads over the pages.

Just as the woman was agreeing to pray to invite Jesus into her life, one of her many children interrupted and dragged her away. Shady approached her again later, and this time she had the great privilege of leading this woman, plagued by problems and sins, to Christ. The woman went home a new person, with the huge challenge of showing Christ to her large and troubled family!

The clinic raised awareness of the bi-weekly Bible study offered at the clinic location in Santa Ursula. And back in San Francisco, we’re offering courses on intercessory prayer, answers to frequently asked questions, and how to give a public evangelistic talk. The believers have enthusiastically embraced the mobile clinic as their own ministry—an opportunity to put their new skills into practice.