|
Healthcare has been described as the world's most urgent need. Learn about one man's global effort to save some of the nine point two million lives lost each year because of that need not being met.
That's a thought that haunted Jim Tucker until he put his faith in action and looked for a way to help at least one person. What he found was a way to help people all over the world.
Tucker knows what it means to seek and find.
"I looked for ways I could make a difference in the lives of people I was merely supporting missionaries to help."
He's still supporting missionaries, but in a way he never imagined.
"My vision was very small but God's vision is always so much larger."
That's how he explains MedMissions, a faith based storehouse filled with donated medical equipment and supplies like beds, lights, chairs, gloves, gowns, IV machines and medicines to name a few. It's all re-donated to clinics and hospitals serving the poor all over the world.
"Simple things like syringes. You'd think syringes are available all over the world and they are, but they are expensive. From time to time we are fortunate enough to be recipients of donated syringes we can give to people to take to Africa," or South America, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, India and Kenya.
Pastor Dan is from Eldoret, Kenya. They just built a new clinic which is now empty.
"Now we need medical equipment for our clinic. We have X-rays, dental, pharmacy, maternal child health. We have a laboratory which we will be testing for HIV."
MedMissions will help bring Pastor Dan's vision of providing health care to the community surrounding his church into view. He'll actually carry this microscope back on a plane to Kenya. Everything else will go in a 40 foot shipping container.
"We do not pay shipping costs, but we do find donors who are willing to assist with the cost of shipping the equipment and supplies around the world," said Tucker.
Take this box headed to Dr. Ben Roberts at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya. He's the UAB eye surgeon whose family CBS 42 featured in a Faith in Action report from Africa in 2007. For Jim putting his faith in action means getting these medical supplies to the people who are helping those who can't help themselves.
"The job is never done. There will always be the poor, the needy. God moves in your heart when you see the need," said Tucker.
Jim Tucker says their mission statement is to help God's people use God's resources more effectively, for his glory.
|
