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Contents:
Genesis,
Visitation,
Calling,
Pilgrimage,
Musician,
Clinic,
Changes &
Finalé
Genesis
In August 1973, a friend of two years Rev. Joel MacCollam, heard
the Lord tell him that he needed to take me to Houston to a
weekend of Renewal at the Church of the Redeemer. Bob Morris
and George Moses were both pastors there and he had been a
Seminary Classmate of both. Since I had been part of an ever
growing population of Spirit Baptized young professionals and
college students in the Capital District area of New York State
and had been a music minister for nearly two years for the
Charismatic Emmanuel Community in Albany, he felt an
introduction to the music and worship in Houston was needed.
Several months prior to this trip, the Fisherfolk traveling
team, on the way to Coventry, stopped at his parish in Troy NY
for a weekend of renewal which I had attended. During the
closing prayers of Saturday, I saw the only real “vision” I can
ever remember having. It was simply a picture of Christ
surrounded by clouds and light descending into our world and
people of all races and walks of life looking to him.
Visitation
As Joel and I walked into Redeemer for the first time on that
hot August afternoon, I was astounded to see my “vision” across
the entire front wall of the sanctuary! Part of me thought that
this might be evidence of a calling to come to this place and
share my talents but I had not yet experienced the worship,
teaching or community of that place. Friday night prayer and
praise was glorious … an expansion of what I was experiencing in
Albany for worship, teaching, prophecy, prayer and best of all,
the music was partially new and totally refreshing and
exciting. I also had the joy (as a visiting musician) to be
housed at the "Way Inn" during this trip.
While there, the bulk of
Friday was spent with Dr. Bob Eckert at the Fourth Ward Clinic.
After a brief introduction, I was handed a stethoscope and lab
coat and asked to accompany him as he saw patients in the
storage area of an old Weingarten’s super market. The waiting
area was the old loading dock but the exam rooms were horrific!
They were cubicles in old refrigeration bays with insulation in
the walls and ceilings that used to be food storage. Each one
was barely 6’x8’ with room enough for an exam table, a couple of
chairs and a stand to hold medical supplies and instruments. It
was not unusual for a piece of cork-like insulation to fall onto
the exam table while we were seeing a patient. As a nurse (who
was tired of being a nurse) I was grateful the Lord was not
calling me to that place but instead to use my gifts of music
across town at Redeemer.
That trip was capped off
by a visit to the Medical Community meeting on Sunday night at
Lee House on Hyde Park. There were about 40 - 50 people in the
living room and hallway of Bob and Mary Carol Hanson’s big brick
home on Hyde Park in the Montrose area. A local philanthropist,
Mr. Ryan, had bought 5 large homes in the tired art community
that bordered the fourth ward in Houston and donated them to the
Medical Community that ran the Clinic for the huge cost of one
dollar per year per house. He leased them and paid taxes on
them: the inhabitants were responsible to improve them and pay
utilities. I don’t think he ever expected each of these once
stately homes to house 15 - 20 people each.
Calling
I met with Andy Austin and Grover Newman before our trip to the
airport the next morning and told them about my background,
vision and the feeling that God was calling me to come and be
part of the Music Ministry at Redeemer. They asked about the
other part of my life … nursing … and what the Lord was saying
about the ministry in the Fourth Ward. I remember very clearly
telling them that was not where I was being called and that I
very clearly heard the call to music, not medicine. Because of
commitments already made in NY State, it would be February 1974
before I could return for the requisite “discernment visit” for
a month to be sure that call was real.
In early 1974 I arrived
with my guitar and was assigned to stay in the Mazak household,
where Bob Andrew was one of the handful of single adults in a
nuclear family with 6 children and a mother (Marilyn) who was in
full time counseling ministry at Redeemer. My days were filled
with cooking, cleaning, child care, laundry, an occasional noon
Eucharist and - at the nudging of the elders from both Redeemer
and the Medical communities - more trips to the Clinic where I
worked several days as a staff nurse. By week three, I had not
actually been involved in any “music ministry” at Redeemer so I
asked to meet with Andy and Grover again. Their response went
something like … “We wondered how long it would take for you
to claim your place where you felt called.” That afternoon,
Brian Howard and I went to visit a music store and found my 12
string Alvarez guitar which I have played since and the final
two days of my stay, I was invited to play for Noon Eucharist
and Friday night Prayer and Praise. Finally … I had arrived.
Or so I thought!
I flew home, loaded my
1964 Mercury Comet with my clothes, guitar, nursing books and a
few other odds and ends I thought might be helpful, cashed my
savings into traveler’s checks and with a college friend from
Michigan, was set to start out the following morning for the 4
day drive to Houston when the phone rang at 9PM. It was Andy
Austin. “We have been praying about this since you left and
believe that the Lord would not waste a nursing education. You
do belong here but not at Redeemer…in the Medical Community and
as a nurse at the Fourth Ward Clinic.” I was devastated!
But I knew I had a calling and trusted the Lord would be
faithful to that calling so at 4am, Mike and I began the drive
to Houston.
Pilgrimage
Four long weary days later, we pulled off I-45 at Cullen Blvd
and called the number for the clinic that Andy had given me, got
directions to the Clinic and were greeted by Sharon King who
took us to the retail part of the Weingartens that was being
remodeled to house new modern exam rooms. She drew a map on
exam table paper and sent us off to Tim and Bonnie Telge’s house
in Alief. I was to share a room with 2 and a half year old
Mark, and Sharon King was the other adult in the smallest of the
Medical Community’s households . I remember we sat around the
living room that night with Tim and I playing guitar and Mike on
his banjo playing for hours after dinner before the household
quieted for the night. The next day, Mike flew back to Niles
Michigan and I began working at the Clinic full time
(Wednesday…the first day).
Tim Telge was the head
of Music Ministry for the Medical Community and Sunday night at
the weekly Community meeting, he asked me to play with him which
I was glad to do. It seemed that music I had never heard or
sung, came off my fingers and out of my mouth seamlessly. I
was free! Monday Morning I was asked to bring my guitar and
lead music at the staff worship at 8:45 am at the Clinic. All
staff gathered to clean the clinic at 7am then broke for worship
and prayer for the persons God would bring to us that day & we
opened the doors for patients (often 30 - 40 already waiting) at
9:30 am. The Clinic officially closed at 5PM but if there were
still 25 patients left at that time, we stayed till all were
seen, often getting home after 8PM. This was Monday through
Friday. On Saturdays, we were officially open 9 - 1 but still
arrived at 7am to clean and left the building between 3 and 4PM.
Musician
Monday night (the 6th day), Tim announced at dinner
that Nancy Newman had called from Redeemer and invited the
Medical Community musicians (Tim and myself) to join the worship
team at Redeemer for rehearsals on Tuesday evenings. I cannot
express the joy and freedom that came that Tuesday evening when
we sat with the other guitarists and Carl Wheeler on bass
learning to play “The Redeemer sound” as a group. Morning and
evening came, the seventh day. And it was good. The next
morning, a call came into the Clinic from Redeemer and a message
was delivered to me downstairs in the Clinic. Would I please
identify two days that would fit into the Clinic schedule for me
to come over to Eastwood and play for Noon Eucharist and would I
please consider joining the worship team for Friday night prayer
and praise?
So … despite a call less
than two weeks prior from Andy Austin saying God was saying I
needed to be at the Clinic as a nurse instead of at Redeemer as
a Musician, I was playing 6 mornings a week at the Clinic
worship, two afternoons a week at Redeemer’ noon Eucharist and
every Friday night at Redeemer for prayer and praise as well as
helping Tim with music leadership of the Medical Community
meetings. I had heard correctly that God was calling me to
this place to use the musical talents he had given me. And he
was using my work at the Clinic to smooth the rough edges of the
idealistic young nurse that wanted to turn her back on nursing.
Clinic
I saw things at the Clinic that nursing school and working in
Albany Medical Center (an 800 bed teaching hospital) had never
prepared me for. And I got quite adept at taking a medical
history in Spanish. Within a month I was triaging the 100+
patients a day who came to us without an appointment determining
if they could go into an appointment slot, needed to see one of
our 8 specialists who came in a day a week and donated time, or
were in need of a visit with one of our 3-4 physicians on duty
in the clinic. A couple of months later, I was given the task
of managing the schedule of nursing staff (18 full and part time
LVNs and RNs). When Juan Serrano MD joined us as OB/GYN
specialist, he agreed to teach me what was needed to run the OB
clinic weekly for all of the routine pregnancy visits as well as
running a GYN clinic on standing orders three additional days a
week. I was promoted to head nurse and in my two and a half
days in general medicine clinic continued to triage and
occasionally see patients.
By late 1974, we had
constructed enough of the retail area of Weingarten’s with
volunteer help from the Community and the Church that we had
space for three physicians to see patients in modern, well lit
exam rooms with new, or like-new, furnishings. We even had
sinks with running water and sufficient rest rooms for staff and
patients! In addition to the large general medicine clinic, we
now had a working dental clinic with Stu Stimson DDS as a full
time dentist and member of the Medical community. John
Venaglia OD was coming up from Galveston once a week to run an
eye clinic. We had a specialty wing where we had podiatry,
dermatology, surgical, pediatric, cardiology clinics one day a
week. And we had a women’s health clinic four days a week where we
offered prenatal and post-partum care, nutrition counseling,
birth control teaching and medication. Our laboratory was
growing exponentially with state of the art equipment donated as
a result of efforts of Shirley Mitchell AMT and a well-stocked
pharmacy overseen by John Rodenbough, MD and Roy Pettway with
medication samples donated by pharmaceutical reps. Many a
night or between patients we gave up breaks to pop pills from
bubble wrapped sample cards into bottles that would be more
compact and easier for patients to handle.
Millie Daily and Dave
Carlson managed to take thousands of medical records and
organize them in what for that time and place was a very forward
thinking and modern Medical Records system. Affifa Matta was
cherished as a healer in her Physical Therapy department. And
there were always visitors … Thank God there was no HIPPA in
effect in those days because if Dr. Eckert needed help with a
circumcision and the nurses were all busy, he was likely to grab
a visitor to the community who’d been asked to help out in
reception for the day to hold the infant while he did the
procedure. And guests were put to work pulling and refilling
medical records or helping out in the pharmacy counting and
bottling prescription meds.
Nancy Satterfield and
Joe Byrne oversaw the administration of the clinic from the loft
over the old loading dock. Dan Butler did the financial
management and Franklin Marzullo headed the social service
department. By the time Bob Eckert left the Clinic to begin his
traveling evangelism ministry in early 1975, there were more
than 80 full and part time volunteers working at the clinic
which was seeing patients without ever generating bills.
Occasionally someone would offer to pay what they could for
services received but more often than not, the Community
benefited by the gardens of our patients or their pantries or
kitchens. I used to love it when one older woman would go with
her daughter to Texas City each month “crabbin” and bring us a
10 gallon stew pot of crab gumbo the next day for our staff
lunch at the clinic.
Changes
In the early months of 1975, a special meeting of the Medical
Community was called at the Marzullo household where Bob Eckert
announced that the Lord had called him away from the Clinic to a
traveling ministry of teaching and he was moving to Sulphur
Springs. Redeemer did not feel, with all of the ministries
that they now had active that they wanted to assume headship in
his absence but St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Bellaire Texas
was looking to start Charismatic Household Community and would
gladly take on the elders of the Medical Community and the
following day, we did a “fruit basket turnover move” and put
thirty of us from Medical Community households into St.
Matthew’s homes and moved an equal number of people from St.
Matthew’s homes to the Montrose area and the Clinic grew in
staff and the number of patients we were able to serve. I had
to stop playing Noon Eucharist and Friday nights at Redeemer and
now played on Thursday nights at St. Matthew’s prayer and
Praise. And I missed Redeemer.
Finalé
In the months following the departure of Bob Eckert from the
Clinic, we continued to see upwards of 150 patients daily under
the medical direction of Drs Red Fisher and Ron Ross as well as
the specialists that came to us regularly. But then … Medicare
and Medicaid cut payments and the clinic income dropped by
nearly 80% in the course of just a couple of months since our
income was almost solely from third party payers. And
pharmaceutical companies started more closely regulating the
samples that were doled out and our available stock of
medication went from bountiful to meager over the course of a
few short months. By late 1976, many of the volunteers had
left, the professional staff was getting part time or even full
time positions in other medical facilities and The Clinic as we
knew it ceased to exist. It was later reopened under far
stricter guidelines under a not for profit and eventually became
a Satellite Clinic for the City of Houston. When David and I
visited Houston for Redeemer’s final weekend in February 2011,
the building was gone. Leveled as if it never existed. And
the community homes donated by Mr. Ryan have been leveled and a
new high end gated community now resides where we once lived.
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