Every great vision has its hour of birth
Since our student days, my wife Tina and I regularly talked about founding a missionary hospital. We wanted to offer the best medicine to the poorest of the poor. But how and where and when? We had no idea. Back in 1986, I presented the idea to a group of Americans at a Thanksgiving party. That was in Houston, Texas, and since then a lot of water has flowed down the rivers of this world.
On September 27, 2000, I sat sadly in a guest house in Quito, Ecuador, staring at the white wall of the room. I realized that we were living a lie. This hospital was nothing more than a castle in the air. And Tina and I fulfilled all the criteria of a pipe dream. There was only a vague idea and almost insurmountable difficulties. Weren’t we even impostors who made big noises?
Sadly, I opened my little devotional book in the evening and read the recommended Bible text for the day. It was in Psalm 32 and I read the passage in a Spanish Bible. When I got to verse 8, the words instantly snapped me out of my depressed mood. It said: “God says: ‘My eyes are on you. I will give you guidance and advice and show you the way you should go!
And at that moment, something happened that had never happened before in my life. The verse jumped from the side into the air and penetrated deep inside me.
My resignation gave way to an incredible feeling of elation. I suddenly had the rock-solid conviction that this missionary hospital could not only be built, but would be built. It wasn’t us who bore the ultimate responsibility, but God himself. He would take my wife Tina and me by the hand and let us know what actions we needed to take.
The promise from the book of books was to be fulfilled a thousand times over. God opened doors that seemed locked and barred. He led us along mysterious paths that neither we nor others knew. The result is one of the most modern missionary hospitals in the world, which has already treated over 600,000 patients to date.
When God meets us and commissions us, the journey into impossibility begins. Twenty-five years ago today, this truth hit me right in the heart and our dream took flight. Without God’s blessing and guidance, our work would not have come into being. That’s why we never tire of saying: “Soli Deo Gloria!”/KDJ
