Local church funded container clinic to open soon in Ghana

One of two containers sent from two Laurens County churches to house medical clinics should be opening soon. 

Pine Forest Methodist Church and Buckhorn Methodist Church teamed up in 2022 to form a what they called Operation Lifesavers. Toward the end of that year, they sent both containers to be used as a three-room OBGYN clinics to be shipped to Ghana.

Pine Forest member Bucky Dixon recently heard from Jonathan Hartsfield that one of the containers had made it to a village called Nungua close to a town called Elubo in the Jomoro District of Ghana.

“(Jonathan) is the guy who specializes on the solar side of the whole project,” Dixon said. “He was actually able to go to the site and he just turned on the lights. Hopefully, we’re going to have it up and running by September.” 

Dixon said there were some issues with things in the village.

“The container is there and it’s set up,” he said. “It feels good to see it over there.” 

The water tower has been built but they still have to get the water supply hooked up. The well needs to be drilled and the solar power needs to be connected. 

“We have sent the funds to get it done,” Dixon said. “They are getting closer and it is honestly out of our hands now. It’s in God’s hands, like it has been this whole time.” 

Hartsfield told Dixon that it took him three hours to get from where he was staying in a nearby town to where the container is located in that village.

“That is how remote (the container’s location) is,” Dixon said. “Without our churches doing what we did, that place where the container is would be empty. They would be having babies on the ground like they are doing now.” 

Dixon showed pictures of the containers with workers putting things together inside, including extra lumber for a shelter.

“The whole plan the whole time was to put a shelter over the top,” he said. “It worked out well. This is going to be one of the first clinics they are going to be able to get up and going. Fourteen (containers) have been sent. But this one is for some reason ahead of the rest of them.” 

The Yonkofa Project, out of Atlanta, started the clinic projects and Bobby Gale, who is with Unto the Least of His, pitched it to Dixon and Jared Middleton, who is with Buckhorn. 

“COVID-19 did away with our mission trip at the church,” Dixon said. “Jared and I were together when the idea was tossed and we took this as a way to do a foreign mission trip local.”

The clinic will have a reception room, an exam room and a birthing room in the back. The churches asked for community support. People donated new items  like cloth diapers, soccer balls with a pump, toilet paper, bar soap and grooming supplies, children’s books and Bibles, school supplies, kids sunglasses, kids flip flops or sandals and financial donations.

While the container will help women, it will also be beneficial for children. They will be able to go to the clinic and receive care, though the primary purpose for it will be for prenatal and postnatal care for women who are expecting.

Dixon said the all of the lumber, lighting, cabinets and windows were donated. When completed, the churches sent the containers on their way across the ocean to South Africa. What happens now is out of the churches hands. 

“We let it go when it left us,” Dixon said. “Our side of it is done. There’s not a way we can touch it, feel it or see it, but God still continues to bless it. We are praying that He will continue to use our efforts that we started and hope it will bless the people there.”