Crossover Bible Church will have a permanent home in the Crossover Community Center!
Supporting Crossover’s Missionaries by Leah Pickard
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ave and Catherine Hodge became members of Crossover Bible Church in 2010 while Catherine was completing residency through the In His Image program; it can easily be said that had she and Natalie Schaller not joined Crossover we would not have Crossover Health Services today. When Catherine’s training was complete, she and Dave felt a strong burden for the people in Malawi where the population is predominately made up of $1-2/day subsistence farmers. And so, in 2013, Dave, Catherine and their newborn, Charlotte, moved to Nkhoma, Malawi, and have been serving there since. Their family has been completed by two more little ladies, so they now have three young daughters, Charlotte (7), Evelyn (5) and Noelle (3). Catherine works in Nkhoma Hospital which is a 105-year-old, 280 bed hospital, founded by Dutch reformed church South African missionaries. Their 300 employees serve 85,000 in the immediate catchment area and 400,000 when all referring health centers are taken into account. They average 3,400 deliveries a year, with 45,000 outpatient visits and 16,000 general admissions. In Malawi, there is 1 doctor per 30,000 people. Nkhoma hospital is a rural Christian academic center, training Malawian doctors to specialize in family med-
icine and general surgery. Catherine also assists in training medical students and nurses, in their own nursing college. Last year, the Hodge family was in the states on furlough and came back to Crossover to visit. During a conversation at Church one morning, Ellie (my daughter) and I were getting the update on all that they were doing in Nkhoma. Before we left, we asked how we could be praying for them, and Catherine expressed a loneliness that sometimes sets in, especially during American holidays. Ellie piped up and declared that we would come visit them for Thanksgiving that year (it was January at the time), and while I loved the idea of traveling to encourage our friends serving in Africa, I was skeptical about getting all our ducks in a row to make the trip in 10 months. And then COVID-19 hit, and I thought for sure we would not be able to go. But God still did not lift the burden to start the planning process of traveling to Malawi even though we only had 8 months. Once I took that first step in faith towards planning God provided everything we needed! We landed in Lilongwe, Malawi on New Year’s Day 2021, just a month and a half later than we planned and were in the Hodges’ home an hour later!
Crossover Community Impact
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