October 10, 2006
Alliance medical workers in Poipet, Cambodia, face unique challenges as they help train local doctors and surgeons to improve care for the poor at a conference and training center that recently opened under the auspices of the Poipet Community Health Project. “Pray that we will have strength from God to persevere,” says Beth Logue, an Alliance health care worker. Landmine injuries are common. In addition, many patients have needed thyroid and kidney surgeries, both of which pose high risks. “At any rate, we have had zero post-operative infections and no complications,” Logue says.
Despite obstacles, many patients who have been cared for by the Khmer staff at the center have started coming to church, along with their families. A number have made public professions of Christ and been baptized. “The church is growing not because we are proselytizing but because our patients are searching for love and purpose beyond what they know,” says Logue.
In a discipleship class, a woman whose baby had been operated on by the Poipet project’s medical staff confided that she had not been feeling well. One of the men in the class asked if the symptoms started after she had begun attending church. When she answered yes, he told her she needed to cut off her “spirit strings,” the Buddhist/animist way of warding off evil, and become a Christian. Syna Lao, an Alliance worker, took the opportunity to share the gospel with the woman, who decided to follow Jesus.
For Logue and her husband, Brad, stories such as this confirm that they are serving in Poipet for a deeper purpose than removing kidney stones. “I have come to the realization that if one soul is saved because of the work we are doing at the center, then it is a success,” says Logue. We “are facilitating the planting of seeds, but it is the Khmer who are bringing in the harvest. This is what our mission statement means about creating sustainable wholistic ministries. Long after we are gone, the Khmer Christians will still be here, reaching out to their neighbors and sharing Christ.”