It was a sunny October day when I parked in front of the Taylors Free Medical Clinic on Main Street in Taylors, not much more than a stone’s throw from the church where the idea for such a ministry was born – Taylors First Baptist.
KirklandFor the life of me, I couldn’t see any difference in the clinic and virtually any upscale family medical practice. But there was at least one major difference: When the 36 patients who came to the two-story, freshly-renovated, 2,500-square-foot facility that day had received appropriate health services and perhaps had picked up prescriptions at a pharmacy on site, they didn’t pay a penny.
When I visited to get a story for the Courier, the clinic had been open for a couple of months – since July 28. On its first day of operation, the clinic saw 10 patients and 36 on the day when I was there. At that point, the clinic had offered services to more than 200 different patients. Today, that number has grown to more than 3,000.
That calls for a celebration, and that’s just what the Taylors Free Medical Clinic did on Sept. 28, with a fifth-anniversary and fundraising festivity at Timmons Arena on the campus of Furman University.
Tony Beam, a vice president and director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville University, served as master of ceremonies for the event. He drew a comparison between those who only debate health care and those who “roll up their sleeves” and do what they can.
Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and presidential aspirant, delivered the keynote address, declaring that “the clinic’s success is a reminder that when people hear from God, they must do more than just buy into it with their hearts, they must also do something about it.”
Huckabee said the clinic is “about the Great Physician as well as some great physicians,” telling the large audience that “the challenge is to be part of something bigger than yourself.”
The primary purpose of the clinic is to offer primary health care at no cost to the ever-growing number of people in the area with low incomes and no health insurance.
The added value of the health services provided by the clinic is its ministry “to the whole person,” a guiding philosophy that takes into account the spiritual and emotional – as well as the physical – needs of the patients.
“May we,” goes the vision statement adopted by all of the volunteer medical and administrative personnel at the clinic, “have eyes to see those rendered invisible and excluded, open arms and hearts to reach out and include them, healing hands to touch their lives with love, and in the process, heal ourselves.”
Although the clinic grew out of a ministry of Taylors First Baptist, it is embraced by various individuals, churches and charitable foundations – all of them contributing nearly a half-million dollars to the clinic last year. Eighty-three percent of the money went for health enhancement programs and client services.
“God has taken the clinic on an amazing journey over the last five years,” said Karen Salerno, executive director. Concerning the patients, she added, “We have had the privilege of sharing their tears, triumphs, trials and joys, and of seeing hearts won for Christ.”
Salerno characterized the patients as good people surviving on limited resources and in need of help. “They exhibit great courage,” she mentioned, “simply trying to get through each day.”
The faith-based clinic began in the hearts and minds of community leaders who had been engaged in international medical missions work for years, primarily through the highly-successful Mo-Med ministry of Taylors First Baptist.
Two church members – physician James Hayes and businessman Russell Ashmore Jr. – had been on Mo-Med projects before, but in a mission venture to South America in 2001, they wondered, “If we can do this in South America and halfway around the world, why can’t we do something to help the people in our own backyard?”
The conversation between Hayes and Ashmore planted the seed that grew into the Taylors Free Medical Clinic. Frank Page, pastor of Taylors First Baptist when the clinic moved from dream to reality, told the celebrants at the Furman dinner that the movement to start the clinic resulted from “a vision from God.” Hayes and Ashmore, upon their return from South America, led in forming a steering committee. The clinic was incorporated in 2004 and opened in 2005.
Hayes chairs the clinic’s board of directors, and Ashmore is vice chairman. “There is no greater honor,” Hayes said, “than to be allowed to care for someone physically and also spiritually.” Ashmore said his greatest satisfaction results from knowing that because of the clinic, “many have come to know the Lord and their lives have been transformed.”
Although TFBC’s Mobile Medical Mission (Mo-Med) ministry spawned it, the Taylors Free Medical Clinic is not directly affiliated with any church or organization. It is, however, a thoroughly Christian ministry that needs and deserves the support of churches and individuals who believe in the ministry of our Lord himself, who healed both body and spirit as he “went about doing good.”