A Different Kind of Healing Ministry

March 2018

Ruby Garner is a health educator for Health People, an organization in New York’s South Bronx that provides services to people in need. She is an adviser to the AIDS Institute of the New York State Department of Health and partners with her church, First Corinthian Baptist in Manhattan, to provide medical care to its lower-income neighbors.

Website: healthpeople.org

1. What inspired you to partner with your church? Being able to give to my community, which has a lot of disparities, and deliver information and resources to people who need them is my passion. Working at Health People, I do presentations on behalf of the state of New York on diabetes prevention, health care for women, HIV, how to establish and maintain healthy relationships, and other topics. It made sense to take what I already do and bring it to my church.

2. What do communities in the South Bronx need? There needs to be education on how to find resources. There are a lot of people who still aren’t aware that they are at risk for diabetes, heart attack, HIV, Hepatitis C, high cholesterol, etc. I want to reach them. A lot of people in my neighborhood are undocumented and homeless. There are people who don’t have information that can benefit them, and they’re afraid to seek information, out of fear that they will be targeted or penalized in some way. I try to reassure them and get them the help they need.

3. How does your Christian faith intersect with your work? When I go where I’m needed, I feel like I’m being filled up with love, with something more important and bigger than me. When people ask me questions and they really want to know the answers—they’re interested and care about their health, their children—it boosts me and reassures my faith. I’m on a journey, but during my journey God is pushing me in such a way that I’m able to help other people.

Every day that someone leaves me, I want them to leave with something. Once I finish my presentation, I want them to be able to take something with them that’s good for them and may be able to help someone else. That’s why I don’t just give presentations in the Bronx. I go to Albany [N.Y.]—I go wherever I can afford. Sometimes I get frustrated, but then I meet someone and have information they need, and they say, “I don’t know how this happened, but by the grace of God.”

4. What would you say to someone to convince them to start helping their communities? The work is rewarding. My reward is doing it and feeling good that I’ve done the right thing. My reward is the fact that I’m able to help someone. I don’t care if I only help one person a week or one person a year. While we are on Earth, trying to live together, there are many ways that we can do God’s ministry. The whole purpose is to be able to pour out as much love and information as we have been given in our past—because I didn’t get where I am now by myself.

Da’Shawn Mosley

Da’Shawn Mosley (dashawn-mosley.com) is a former Sojourners associate editor and lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

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