Wallace Memorial’s healthcare ministry receives ultrasound machine from ERLC
By Tom Strode
Baptist Press

Dan Darling of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, speaks to the congregation of Wallace Memorial Baptist Church. Looking on, from left, are Mike Boyd, pastor; Sandy Bolton, director of missions for Wallace Memorial; John Swisher, president, Wallace Mobile Healthcare; Joe Sorah, compassion ministry specialist, Tennessee Baptist Convention; Phil Young, director of missions, Knox County Association of Baptists; and Tom Hodges, director, Montgomery Village Baptist Center, Knoxville.
KNOXVILLE — An East Tennessee ministry has a new resource provided by Southern Baptists for its mission to serve the needy — in this case, underprivileged, pregnant women.
Wallace Mobile Healthcare, based in Knoxville, received an ultrasound machine March 6 from the Psalm 139 Project of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. The gift — the latest made by the ERLC to centers across the country — occurred during the morning worship service of Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville.
The ERLC is “honored to work with Wallace Mobile Healthcare (a ministry of Wallace Memorial Baptist) to provide hope for pregnant women in crisis,” said Dan Darling, the ERLC’s vice president for communications, after making the presentation.
“Wallace Memorial has such a wonderful legacy, inspired by the great missionary Bill Wallace, of providing gospel hope to the most vulnerable,” Darling said in a March 7 news release. “This ultrasound machine is just one more way the heroes working here every day can serve the community with a holistic, pro-life ethic.”
Wallace Mobile Healthcare seeks to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the uninsured and underprivileged in Knox County and nearby rural communities in Appalachia through the provision of free medical services. The non-profit ministry is named in memory of Bill Wallace, a Southern Baptist missionary from Knoxville who died as a prisoner of the Chinese Communists in 1951.
John Swisher, the ministry’s medical director and member of Wallace Memorial, said Wallace Mobile Healthcare is “very excited to add this new tool” to its program.

Wallace Mobile Healthcare, a ministry of Wallace Memorial Baptist Church, Knoxville, was given a new ultrasound machine to minister to underprivileged pregnant women in the community.
“The Psalm 139 grant of an ultrasound machine is a blessing to our patients who otherwise might not seek medical care during a pregnancy,” Swisher said in the ERLC release. “This instrument will help us visually share the miracle of a new life with mothers throughout our region.”
In its multi-faceted ministry, Wallace Mobile Healthcare provides in-home services through volunteers to people in Knox County who have no health insurance, are unemployed, or are living at or below the poverty level. It also ministers to those in local homeless shelters and to those in urban Knoxville or rural communities with limited access to healthcare. In addition, volunteers with the ministry serve in mobile clinic outreaches overseas.
Sandy Bolton, Wallace Memorial’s missions ministries director and a volunteer with the healthcare ministry, said she gets “excited thinking of the many opportunities that Wallace Mobile Healthcare will have with the ultrasound machine.”
Mike Boyd, pastor of Wallace Memorial, observed that “this is a difficult time for many women. The addition of this sonogram to the ministry of Wallace Mobile Healthcare will provide many opportunities for our volunteers to speak the good news of Christ’s compassion and forgiveness into the lives of women.
“We prayerfully trust that many babies will be rescued because of this life-saving gift. This sonogram enables us to better serve our Lord in winning and growing people for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said.
The ERLC worked with the Tennessee Baptist Convention and the Knox County Association of Baptists in coordinating the provision of the ultrasound machine to Wallace Mobile Healthcare, which is funded by donations from churches and individuals, as well as grants.
Phil Young, director of missions for Knox County Baptists, said words “are inadequate to express the depth of thanksgiving for this gracious gift of life!”
Wallace Mobile Healthcare’s “partnership with Knox County Baptist churches and with our innercity Baptist centers enables us to bring the whole gospel to people in their own communities,” Young told Baptist Press in written comments.
“Partnering with Wallace Mobile Healthcare helps us move beyond the walls of our church buildings to meet the physical and spiritual needs of people throughout Knox County.”
The Psalm 139 Project’s name comes from the well-known chapter in the Bible in which David testifies to God’s sovereign care for him when he was an unborn child. David wrote in verse 13 of that psalm, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
All gifts to the Psalm 139 Project go toward the purchase, delivery, and installation of ultrasound machines, as well as training for staff members, since the ERLC’s administrative costs are covered by the SBC’s Cooperative Program.


