The missions chairman in an Illinois church had heard of Mission Match but did not know of a project that matched his church’s interests. Then one day, as he was driving, he was listening to an interview on a Christian radio station. A doctor and his wife, based in Illinois, were talking about a mother-child clinic they founded in rural Ghana. Two days later, a different person on the same station was again interviewing the couple. “I immediately realized that the International Health and Development Network organization was a perfect fit for a Mission Match project and that God was handing it to me in my lap.”
The pastor wrote that the Illinois church has been supportive of missions in general: “The church has always done a lot to support missionaries, and that’s a great thing too, but this was such a great opportunity to donate directly to a cause which is specifically working with kids.” It had taken time before the church was ready to contact Mission Match: “Our missions chairman had initially shared information on Mission Match with me months before we applied. We knew it would be worth pursuing but we didn’t yet have the right project that fit Mission Match and which made sense for our church to pursue. This hospital felt like a perfect fit.”
The church applied for a Mission Match matching contribution. The application asks for info about the specific causes of death the project “hopes/might reasonably expect to address.” The church indicated their project planned to assist the clinic with operational costs and medical supplies, including addressing malaria and other general medical needs. Once the application was approved, the church promoted the project through Sunday morning presentations, Sunday school classes, and their social media page. The missions chair was encouraged by the response the project received: “Seeing little kids in Sunday School classes putting money in jars and adults funding the project. From nickels, dimes, and quarters to $100 donations, people are getting involved and becoming those little drops of water that will fill the bucket.”
The church exceeded the goal of $3,000. When the money the church raised combined with the $3,000 Mission Match matching contribution, in October 2022 the pastor and missions chairman were able to visit the U.S. hospital where the doctor works and present a check for $7,716.19 to the doctor and his wife to support the clinic.
There are reportedly no roads to the mother-child clinic in rural Ghana. The missions chair said the building materials had to be brought over undeveloped land. The pastor wrote, “For some of these children in nearby villages, this hospital is the first time in their lives they’ve ever seen a doctor.”
The impact of the project on those involved was clear from a comment by the missions chairman:
“In the film 42, Harrison Ford’s character Branch Rickey asks the baseball owner Herb Pennock if he thinks God loves baseball. Herb replies, ‘What? What is that supposed to mean?’ Branch Rickey says to him, ‘It means someday you’re gonna meet God and when He inquires as why you didn’t take the field against Robinson in Philadelphia and you answer that it’s because he was a Negro …… IT MAY NOT BE A SUFFICIENT REPLY!’
“I’ve thought what it’s going to be like to stand before God when He asks me, ‘Why didn’t you help save my dying children?’ and if I (or you) don’t do something when I am able to, then my (or your) answer to His question …… MAY NOT BE A SUFFICIENT REPLY! Jesus is providing the way to make a difference. Do it!”
The land was prepared before the new clinic foundation was laid.
Foundation work for the clinic was proceeding in February 2020.
Workers stand before the nearly completed clinic in January 2021.