Healing the Sick: Bible class project sparks international medical ministry

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) -- An eye-opening visit by a Baptist Sunday school class to a Moscow hospital nearly 20 years ago sparked a project that today provides millions of dollars in medical supplies to almost 100 countries around the world.

In 1989, emboldened by the Soviet Union’s new perestroika policies, a few members of Columbia Baptist Church in the Washington-area community of Falls Church, Va., traveled to Moscow to explore a mission partnership with the Soviet capital’s Central Baptist Church.

While there, a tour of a nearby hospital -- suffering from the country’s economic tailspin -- shocked them. Medical personnel removed gauze from a wound, washed it and reused it. Surgeons used common sewing thread instead of sutures. Medical supplies were limited and sometimes non-existent.

Over the next few years, the class worked with its church and community to collect medical supplies, eventually shipping 17 40-foot containers filled with medical supplies to Moscow. The first shipment of supplies was valued at $131,532. Three years later, almost $5 million in supplies had been sent.

In 1996, the Russian relief program ended when it became too difficult to ship containers to Moscow. But by that time, Columbia’s volunteers had developed effective systems to acquire and ship donated funds and supplies around the world, and they were determined to continue the project. In November that year, CrossLink International was incorporated as a  non-profit humanitarian aid ministry.