Cardiologist M.L. Godley, chief of staff at the LSU Medical Center in Pineville, made small talk with a camo-clothed lad not yet 3 years old, and to honor the attention, young Devyn Fitt proudly showed the doctor the toy truck he was taking good care of.
GLENMORA – Cardiologist M.L. Godley, chief of staff at the LSU Medical Center in Pineville, made small talk with a camo-clothed lad not yet 3 years old, and to honor the attention, young Devyn Fitt proudly showed the doctor the toy truck he was taking good care of.
The physician’s body language and gentle touch spoke of his care for the dozen patients he was seeing this dark Thursday night in a 20×40 unmarked wooden building in what seemed to be deep into timber country, even though it was just seven miles off the nearest highway. The time Dr. Godley took with each patient spoke of his concern that they felt their medical needs had been adequately addressed.
“I do this as a volunteer, to help people,” Dr. Godley said. “That’s why I became a doctor – to help people.”
The prominent cardiologist was volunteering this mid-January Thursday night at the Amiable Medical Clinic, a ministry of Amiable Baptist Church in Rapides Parish, about 30 minutes southwest of Alexandria.
Perhaps the only ongoing free medical clinic sponsored by a Southern Baptist church in Louisiana – if you know of another, please let the Message know) Amiable Medical Clinic was established in 2002 under the direction of Martha T. Winegeart RN, longtime WMU director at Amiable Baptist.
“We’d been doing a food bank since 1990, and clothing too,” Winegeart said. “This was another way we could minister in the community. … We don’t do big things but we do a lot of little things to help people.”
The clinic’s building, constructed by church members, consists of two examining rooms, a wide hallway in which preliminary checks are made – weight, blood pressure and the like, a rest room that includes enough room for filing cabinets, and a typical doctor’s office waiting room with about a dozen chairs, water cooler, magazines and medical posters. Outside, a handicap ramp.
“We’re way out in the country; that’s why we don’t have a sign,” Winegeart said. “We didn’t want anyone breaking in thinking they could find drugs here.”
It’s not a place that keeps drugs on hand. If an illness is severe, the doctors refer patients to specialists unless, like Dr. Godley, they are the specialist. On this night, patients include those needing prescriptions refilled, pain relieved, and physical concerns examined.
Surprisingly to an observer, most of the patients on this night are men. One, sprayed with Agent Orange when he was in Vietnam, now has diabetes. Another served his country in Desert Storm as well as Vietnam but its just age that has him “stove up,” he said. A third, who needs to get to a job in Alaska, can’t sleep. That sounds like a minor problem until you look at his face. This man is in anguish.
“I have seen Thursday night when people were outside, inside and everywhere,” said Lynn Hilder, who helped build the clinic and is now on the board of directors.
“I’ve seen people who couldn’t drive to go to a doctor, and the doctors [at the clinic] give them a prescription and someone will go get it for them,” Hilder said of the volunteers who staff the clinic. “We just try to help the people in need.
“Witnessing is very subtle,” Hilder continued. “Most of the people are familiar with our church, though they may not attend. We don’t preach to them.”
It would be hard to not be familiar with Amiable Baptist. It was “established,” according to the sign outside the front door, on Sept. 6, 1828; that’s 179 years ago. One of the area’s early settlers gave the church about nine acres, which now straddle what appears to be one of the main roads in that rural area. On one side of the road is the church cemetery.
On the other, two buildings that together include the worship center and fellowship hall were joined in some construction sleight-of-hand about three years ago. Out back, a spacious patio edged with oversize flower pots. Down the hill, a screened-in barbeque pit. And at the far end, the clinic and a storage building for the church’s clothing ministry.
The congregation took the opportunity when the buildings were joined to make everything seem new again – a reverent hush hovers in the worship center that is the size of a typical “first unit” building but this one has the patina of age in its eight elaborately-stained glass windows.
And on the other side of a sturdy fire door, the multi-windowed, cozy yet spacious fellowship hall, with commercial kitchen at one end and over-sized walk-in pantry beyond that. The sound of laughter and congenial conversation hangs in the air.
For months after Katrina, clothing – which had come in by 18-wheel tractor-trailers – was laid out in same-size stacks on long tables. Now – refreshed regularly by area residents – the clothing is brought out as requested, with volunteers stacking, sorting, and pointing people in the direction of what they’re looking for – tops, bottoms, underwear, outerwear and the like.
Volunteers give out food every month, for a total of about 150 regular families, plus others. In January they gave out 50 fifty-pound boxes of food, and more than 80 forty-pound boxes.
Government commodities and purchases at the Cenla Food Bank are strengthened by donations that come straight to the church, such as the recent delivery of 15 bags of cabbage.
In addition to giving 8 percent of its income to missions through the Cooperative Program, and 2 percent to Mt. Olive Baptist Association, Amiable Baptist gives 1 percent to I Am Able Ministries, which – among many other projects – has been going to Cuba, N.M. for five years, helping establish a church on the Navajo reservation. Amiable Baptist volunteers have been among those who go four or five times a year with the ministry’s founder, Randy Carruth.
They’ve constructed a building about the size of Amiable Baptist, and now the New Mexico Baptist Convention has taken on the ministry, which frees I Am Able to do projects elsewhere.
Next on Amiable Baptist’s list: Helping stock Mt. Olive Baptist Association’s new disaster relief trailer, a laundry/shower unit.
Recap: Clothing ministry, food ministry, construction ministry, and medical clinic. Plus occasional projects such as cookies and 14 diddy bags of hygiene items for a seamen’s center. How many people does it take to be so involved in ministry? Perhaps 40 people attend Sunday morning worship at Amiable Baptist, though they haven’t had a pastor since August. But church members do involve in ministry as many people from the community as want to participate.
The clinic’s financial needs are met by a $5-donation-per-visit, for those who are able, plus $400 a month in Cooperative Program funds from Louisiana Baptist Convention and $50 a month from Mt. Olive Baptist Association, where Buddy Hampton is director of missions.
Clinic staff all are volunteers. Winegeart coordinates patient charts. LPN Peggy Willis does preliminary checks: weight, blood pressure, pulse, ears. The physician moves from one patient room to the other, and back again.
“We’ll see as many as come,” Winegeart said. “One night we had 30 patients and were here until 11:30, so I put up a sign that says a limit of 20, and now it says 10, but we’ll take as many as come.”
The Fitt family are regulars; they’ve been coming since January 2005.
“I work in ‘Alex’ five days a week,” said Toni Fitt, who had dropped by with her son to get a prescription refilled. “It’s just easier to come here than to drive back into ‘Alex’ to go to the doctor.”
The clinic’s biggest need is a steady stream of physicians to volunteer their time each week.
“If every doctor in Alexandria would volunteer once a year, there would be plenty,” Winegeart said. Because they don’t, she’s on the telephone each week, leaning on contacts grown over four decades in the Cenla medical field.
“This is God’s ministry,” Winegeart said. “We’re just being His hands, and at the same time we’re sharing the love of Jesus.”
Tammy Sharp contributed to this report.