Student Overcome By Gratitude of Tsunami Victim

After the woman was lovingly cared for at the clinic that was housed in a Christian Boy’s School in Cuddalore, India, she stooped down and kissed the feet of the American nurse who not only ministered to her physical needs, but treated her with dignity.
Colette (Cokie) Westfall, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship volunteer, said she could not bear this woman’s humility. She stooped down to stop the frail woman who was kissing her feet but then the mother cupped Westfall’s face in her hands in overflowing gratitude.
Just a few days earlier, Westfall had come to the point that she could no longer watch the TV news reports about the Tsunami in Southeast Asia. “I could not turn on the TV and see the devastation and not do something,” the Campbell University Divinity School student explains.
Westfall, a self-employed Clinical Research Scientist, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Nursing and feels that God has called her to medical missions in India. That feeling made it hard enough to watch the reports of the plight of the survivors but, in addition she felt a connection to one of the areas affected by the Tsunami, that of Chennai, India; for it was in October of last year, that she and Sam Bandela of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship had just completed discussions with other humanitarian organizations in Chennai in hopes of paralleling efforts to provide medical clinics to impoverished areas in India.
When she first heard about the Tsunami on December 26th, she sent an email to Bandela, the Indian missionary who accompanied her and others to India last fall, asking about the well being of his family and friends she had met in October and also about how she could help in the relief effort. Later, her hopes were dashed when she realized that it would require $3,000 to fund the trip to India. By the next Sunday, she and Linda Jones, associate minister of Missions at Winter Park Baptist Church, shared their sense of God’s call to go to India to help these people who had been devastated by the Tsunami.
Westfall and Jones’s church family of Winter Park Baptist Church raised not only the necessary funds, but additional funds as well to allow the women to make the trip. In addition, Mt. Olive First Baptist Church, Mt. Olive, where Westfall’s parents are members, also gave generously toward the trip. Just 15 days after the disaster, they were on their way to set up a medical clinic in India.
“I have a tremendous burden for the people of India who have not had the opportunity of knowing the love of Christ,” she explains about her call to do mission work in India after her graduation next May. “I’ve always had a drive to alleviate injustice and provide help to those who are downtrodden and oppressed, especially to women and children.” She adds that Mother Teresa was a mentor for her and a prime example of selfless servanthood. She also has worked alongside many Indian medical professionals over the years in her career and gained very deep friendships with these individuals. “I can’t understand it necessarily, but God has just placed a love of the Indian people in my heart.”
Jones, who is an RN as well as Westfall, set up the screening room for assessing the people’s immediate medical needs in the clinic while Westfall and an Indian physician treated patients. There were many other CBF volunteers on the team who
Facilitated the processing of patients and coordinated a pharmacy within the clinic. Westfall says they saw many patients with trauma related injuries; broken bones from debris that hit them during the Tsunami as well as infections deriving from the ingestion of large volumes of seawater. They saw more than 170 patients per day, not only treating their medical emergencies but also giving them clean water, biscuits and fruit as they patiently waited in line to be seen.
“Why do you treat us this way?” one of the people asked. “We’ve never been treated so kindly before.” Word spread quickly throughout the village that the clinic was something special. There was not just quality medical care being given but a sense of kindness and hope as well. “Yes, there was horrible tragedy all around us but in the midst of it all, God was revealed,” explains Westfall. She fondly recalls one day the team looked up from the shoreline where they were standing to the voices they heard above. People from the village of Cuddalore were crossing over the cement bridge that had saved thousands from the forceful Tsunami wave just weeks earlier, waving and calling out to them: “God bless you.”
 

Bulletin 0059-3/10/05