The Luke Project 52 clinic at Family of God, Detroit, which provides free prenatal and infant care, has grown beyond the project directors’ wildest expectations. Director Rev. Brad Garrison says, “The birth of 21 babies in 2017 will be 60-70 in 2018. 427 appointments in 2017 will be 785 in 2018. We are out of room at Family of God. We receive 4-5 calls every week from new mothers begging for us to see them for prenatal care. We cannot bear the thought of saying no, but we are full and have no room. What to do?”
God provided a solution: a 35-foot fully outfitted mobile clinic with 2 exam rooms, lab, and pharmacy.
And so the mobile unit was acquired. It will double the clinic’s exam space to go along with their expanded staff. The unit was being used by Hackensack University as part of their student medical services. After a thorough customization work, it was delivered to The Luke Project 52 Clinic in late June. With only 5,000 miles on the 35’ Airstream unit, Garrison anticipates it serving them well for 10 years. It has state-of-the art medical equipment—all generously donated—and also a powerful wifi service that allows for real-time video consultation with a University of Michigan specialist in high-risk pregnancies if the need arises.
Operating upon the FiveTwo StartNew principle, based on the feeding of the 5,000, Luke Project 52 will see that everything that can be done is done to save babies, change lives eternally, and help churches establish connections with the communities in which they’re planted. Luke Project 52’s job is to discover those resources, take them to Jesus for His blessing, and watch the miracles that occur.
In May, the clinic had received another type of mobile unit—a former ambulance donated by Huron Valley Ambulance company—which is now being used as a stationary antenatal testing unit so that more complex ultrasounds can be done inside the original clinic at Family of God.
The two mobile units were on display at the Michigan District Convention on June 24-26, 2018.
In July, The Luke Project 52 began using the mobile clinics at the Family of God site, thus doubling the capacity of the original clinic. They plan to stay at the same site for 6 months to a year so that staff can get used to operating out of the unit before they deploy to a different location. After that, Garrison says their intent is to establish one new clinic location every two years. Right now they are limited to areas in a 2-hour radius from Whitmore Lake, where they’re based. Garrison explains the reason for the limit: “If it takes two hours to get somewhere, you add in four hours of clinic and two hours back—that’s an eight-hour day. That’s about a radius that we can go.” For now. He adds, “We’ll see what God has in mind.”
Photos by Elisa Schulz/Michigan District, LCMS
