H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
August 8, 2004
JESUS’ GREATEST HITS: Find Some Fish
Matthew 14:14-18
Eula Hall was born in 1927 in Pike County, Kentucky. She grew up over in Joe Boner Holler off
Greasy Creek, and in place so poor she was lucky to grow up at all. Most of her seven brothers and
sisters had one kind of disability or another. Before her tenth birthday, Eula had seen babies die of
dysentery, children killed by malnutrition and parasites, young lives cut off by tuberculosis, and adults
killed by preventable diseases like tetanus. Maybe that explains the dream. When she was nine years
old, Eula dreamed one night about a medical clinic, a vivid dream about a clinic that was open to
everybody and turned nobody away. Looking back, Eula says, "There was no health care for
anybody. I'd pray to God that my family wouldn't die, that we'd have some place where people who
knew something about health care could help us."
Eula married at the age of seventeen. Over the years, she gave birth to five children. Of course,
she had no prenatal care and gave birth at home. One child died in infancy and another was born
premature and deaf. Eula didn’t have much to speak of—no money, no connections, and about five
years of formal schooling—but she decided to help the people around her. She had a job that paid
$50 a week. She saved for seven years and got pledges for $1400 so that she could rent a little
shack in Tinker Fork for $40 a month, and that was her first clinic.
Getting doctors was a problem. Eula managed to attract immigrant physicians who were required
to do a period of service in underprivileged areas in order to qualify for a green card. Housing
conditions were awful, so Eula put the doctors up in her own home and fed them from her table.
Almost as soon as the clinic opened, it was swamped with patients, many of whom had never
seen a doctor before. The cost to the patients was $5 per visit, but no one was turned away if they
couldn’t pay.
It soon became clear that the Tinker Fork building was both too small and too isolated. Many
people that needed care the most couldn’t get there, so Eula moved the clinic into her own home
which was bigger and more centrally located on Mud Creek. The three bedrooms were converted to
six exam rooms and the rest of the house was made into offices and waiting rooms. To make the
house available, Eula moved her family into a small, two-bedroom trailer.
The clinic kept expanding and a few years later merged with Big Sandy Health Care, which
brought in welcome federal dollars. By 1982, the staff had grown to about ten, and the clinic included
an on-site pharmacy and laboratory.
Then, in June of that year, an arsonist burned the clinic to the ground. Eula says it was the hardest
thing she's ever faced; it felt like a death in the family. The day after the fire Eula called the staff
together and said they had people to care for—with or without a building. She dragged a picnic table
under a tree and they saw patients in an open-air clinic until they could scare up a couple of decrepit
trailers.
Three months later, a letter arrived from the Appalachian Regional Commission pledging funds for
a new clinic, but these were matching funds. In order to get the money, the community would have to
raise $80,000. Everybody said that was impossible in such a poor place. Eula wasn’t sure, but she
said she’d never know unless she tried.
She called a community meeting, where 400 people pledged their support. Some gave money;
others donated quilts or other items to be raffled. A two-day radiothon raised $17,000; a chicken-
and-dumpling dinner $1,300. And Eula took to the highway, setting up "roadblocks." She’d set out
sings on both sides of the road asking for help for the Mud Creek Clinic and she’d stand on the
yellow line with a gallon bucket. Altogether, the community raised not only the needed $80,000 but
also an extra $40,000, which paid for X-ray equipment when the new clinic opened in October 1984.
Nowadays the Mud Creek Clinic sits next door to the Mud Creek Help Center, a large building that
houses a dental clinic, a food pantry that feeds more than 100 families each month, and a donated-
clothing closet. Clinic patients are asked to pay at least 20% of their medical bill, but if a person can’t
pay they still receive treatment. Eula uses the income from the Coke machine to help cover the cost of
medication for patients who can’t afford the required flat $12 prescription fee.
Eula’s still going strong, putting in twelve-hour days at the clinic or guiding some doctor over the
mountain roads to make house calls or going to court to help deserving people get benefits. Even
without a law degree, Eula wins 90% of her cases. Last Christmas, she fed some 1500 people with
donated turkeys and hams, and gave away a lot of toys and clothing. And all this from a woman with
a heart condition, diabetes, arthritis, and allergies—the kind of problems that would put many folks in
an easy chair.
If you’re starting to worry that I might preach this whole sermon and forget to mention Jesus, let
me set your mind at ease. This sermon is very much about Jesus, specifically it’s about something
Jesus said one day when he and disciples were confronted by a few thousand hungry people in the
wilderness. We hurry through that story so we can get to the big feeding finale, but let’s postpone the
miracle today and concentrate on what Jesus said.
“When it was evening the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is
now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages to buy food for themselves.’
Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’”
You give them something to eat. It’s the disciples who have noticed the people’s hunger, so it’s
the disciples’ job to do something about it.
You give them something to eat. So the disciples scrape together what they can: five rolls and a
couple of salted fish.
You give them something to eat. That handful of food is ridiculously inadequate, not nearly enough
to meet the need. It’s a pittance, a speck, a drop in the bucket. You can’t feed five thousand hungry
people with the equivalent of a brown-bag lunch.
You give them something to eat. The odd thing is that when the disciples do the silly, impossible
thing Jesus tells them to do, nobody goes home hungry.
Maybe Eula Hall is smarter than other folks. Maybe she’s a superlative organizer. Maybe when
God was handing out gifts, Eula got an extra dollop of perseverance. Maybe. But I don’t think that
explains the Mud Creek Clinic.
I think a little girl saw her sick and dying neighbors, and she said, “God, you’ve gotta help these
people.”
And God said, “Eula, you give them some help.”
More often than we want to admit, the voice of Christ whispers to us, “You give them something
to eat. You give them a place to sleep. You give them a shoulder to cry on. You give them hope. You
give them help.”
You know what I think makes Eula Hall different from most of us? I think she listened and she
obeyed. She didn’t have much to offer, but Jesus doesn’t need much to work with. In the economy
of the Kingdom of Christ, a person’s ability counts for maybe one percent, but a person’s availability
counts for ninety-nine percent.
When people were hungry, the disciples were available. When people were sick, Eula was
available. The next time some human need touches our heart and we wonder why doesn’t God do
something about that, maybe we should ask ourselves if we’re available to do something.
Soli Deo Gloria!