Global Outreach – Keith’s Story

by Keith Cook

My first mission trip to Nicaragua with GFC and Christian Medical and Dental Association (Global Health Outreach) happened a few years ago and I got a glimpse of what a powerful outreach tool it can be for the local (indigenous) church to use healthcare clinics as a platform to draw in the lost and the least in their community.  While limited healthcare is certainly provided, far more important is the time that the provider or team member spends loving and caring and praying with each patient who enters the clinic.  When we travel to open countries,  the patients are definitively presented with the Gospel as well during their clinic visit, often multiple times.

My past few trips have been to semi-closed countries.  Even there, we serve carefully (with huge amounts of prayer and even times of fasting), but continue to do everything we can to spread the Gospel through each encounter.  In these less open areas, the healthcare clinic platform becomes even MORE important for the indigenous church as a way to very tangibly show the love of Christ, often to the “untouchables” or the very least of the society.   The irony is that in multiple villages you will see the “untouchables” all morning and then have the government officials show up later in the day to “welcome you’ (or to check to see what you are doing!).  Often, these same officials will ask to be seen as well.   We pray out loud (with a translator) for these officials just like we do for the other patients, come what may!   Of course, God’s work is not confined just to the patient but also reaches into each team member.  He works to change my “stony heart into a heart of flesh”  the entire time as well, giving me a much deeper love and burden for the unsaved world.

These trips have also made me far bolder in my own practice locally, making me far quicker to pray with patients or to talk to them about the Lord.   My faith has been stretched,  my love for the Lord and for my fellow man has grown far deeper and my heart has been filled with joy from these opportunities.

For more information about GFC Global Outreach, please visit gfcnow.com/outreach.