Body of Christ Community Dental Clinic

In 2014 the Body of Christ Community Clinic, Inc was operating in a single location with both medical exam rooms and two dental treatment suites. The demand for dental care was overwhelming, resulting in appointments being delayed, sometimes for many weeks. We knew we needed to do something, but with limited space we were without a solid plan on how to respond to the strong patient demand.

God was with us, and our prayers were answered when we were offered clear title to a building, a former church building, just down the road, as a gift by the Hope Community Church. As a Board we knew, immediately, exactly what needed to be done with the building, we needed to convert the church into a new dental clinic to help us meet our critical patient demand.

The only problem with that plan was that we had no funds to cover the costs needed to convert an old church building into a dental clinic. With God on our side, we had absolutely no worries as we felt strongly that this is what He wanted us to do, so we embarked on a plan to raise close to a quarter of a million dollars to make it all happen. We decided that since we were a community clinic that we needed to ask the communities which we served for their financial support.

God was with us as He immediately gave us the gift of a man, Ron Emerson, who had extensive construction expertise and who was willing to take on our building project at no cost to us. With no real funds to begin the project we immediately began work on the church building, because we knew God was with us ever strep of the way.

After demolition of the inside of the church building, we developed architectural plans to design a state-of-the-art dental clinic. Utilizing the expertise of our Dental Director, Dr. Ron Henderson, along with donated architectural services we were ready to begin building. Under the leadership of Executive Director Donna Dunn, we held the Clinic’s first ever fundraiser banquet in November of 2014 in Belton to kick off our efforts to build the new dental clinic.

I was honored to be elected as the Board Chairperson beginning in 2015. We knew that in 2015 we had to quickly raise funds to keep the building project going. Some of our member churches had gifted some construction seed money to help get started, but it would be up to the communities we served to help us reach our goal. We went to our communities with what we called the “Building Smiles” campaign asking for help to build the dental clinic. In September we held in Salado another fundraiser which was a major success bringing in over $60,000 in donations for the new dental clinic.

God continued to oversee our efforts. We were blessed to have members of the Salado Church of Christ, who did most of the framing work for the interior of the dental clinic, as volunteers. We were gifted with electrical supplies, equipment, and labor along with heating and air conditioning equipment and labor from two Belton businesses.

We reached out to business members of the Temple, Belton and Salado chambers asking for their donations to our Building Smiles campaign. Mr. Emerson continued to oversee construction and would alert us when we would have a major expense upcoming. There were times when we simply didn’t have the needed funds to take the next construction step, but each time just before we were going to have to temporarily halt construction, a financial gift would come in allowing us to continue, God was truly blessing all our efforts.

In 2015 we began to look for ways to equip our dental clinic. Ms. Dunn was able to locate a dental clinic in Bastrop which was defunct, and she and I went and looked at the dental chairs and other furniture, x-rays, and various other dental equipment which they had for sale. We found it all to be in excellent condition, but unfortunately their price, $53,505, was well beyond what we could afford, so we passed on it. We decided to put that need on hold until we were closer to finishing the building.

As construction continued in 2016, we held another Building Smiles banquet in Belton. At this banquet we focused on attempting to raise funds for all the dental equipment we needed. Dental equipment is quite costly, and it appeared to be a major stumbling block for us, but God was with us every step of the way. Later in 2016, out of the blue the organization who owned the dental equipment in Bastrop contacted us wanting to know if we still needed dental equipment. I talked with them and said we did, but we simply could not afford to pay what they were asking. They responded with “make us an offer.” I offered them $10,000, expecting to hear laughter on the other end of the phone, but what I heard was “we will get back to you.” The next day, after some negotiations, we compromised. We agreed that we would purchase all their dental equipment for $13,824 and they would pay all the cost to ship the equipment to us. We now could fully equip our new clinic, God continued to make things happen for us!

As we were nearing completion, we still needed to construct a parking lot, up to city standards, both in front and behind the new clinic. Concrete was expensive and we simply at that time did not have the funds to pay for it. I mentioned this specific need for a parking lot to my pastor, asking her for prayers as we dealt with this major obstacle. My pastor called me the next day and she said, “I can get you the concrete for your parking lot!” She knew someone who owned a cement company and had agreed to donate the majority of the concrete for our parking lot, God once again had taken control.

On September 16, 2016, we were able to hold dedication services for a brand-new state-of-the-art fully equipped Dental clinic, which was opened with four dental operatories, two dental hygiene rooms, x-ray room, waiting room, reception area, office, break room, and restrooms. It was opened debt free, fully paid for thanks to our member churches, the businesses and good people of Belton, Salado, and Temple, and more importantly to the guiding hand of God the Father Almighty!

One of my favorite verses is from Matthew: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” The Body of Christ Community Clinic, Inc’s dental facility is the perfect example of just that! Over and over, we prayed over issues, obstacles, and funding problems as we built the dental clinic, and each time we prayed, God was there with His abundant grace! Although we as men and women were involved, we both knocked and asked, today we have a dental clinic entirely due to our Father in Heaven. It was His will, and it was done. God is great and God is so very good!