Tim Randolph; An ASCLS Hero With a Mission!
By Dan Southern, MS
Tim Randolph at the microscope in his Haitian clinic (left), villagers line up for a mass screen clinic (top middle), Tim delivers devotions to clinic staff (top right), laboratory staff (bottom right)
In the winter of 1999, Tim Randolph felt God's call to join a mission team to Haiti. During that trip Tim helped build a school in a rural area of Haiti near Port-au-Prince. More importantly, he realized that he was being called to an even bigger commitment to use his clinical laboratory expertise to build and support clinical laboratories in clinics throughout rural Haiti.
To accomplish his goals, Tim established Randolph World Ministries (RWM) in 2002 so he could expand his individual mission to include others. In 2003, RWM gained tax-exempt status and today there are 209 individuals that support his ministry to Haiti with cash and material donations annually.
Randolph World Ministries provides direct support and guidance to three Haitian clinics and provides medical supplies to an additional five clinics. Tim provides ongoing consultation through email contact with medical missionaries affiliated with the clinics. His main clinic, Bethesda Medical Clinic, is located in Vaudreuil, Haiti located near Cap-Haitien. RWM began with three employees and a 64 square foot space. The laboratory test menu was 12 basic lab tests that were performed manually. Today, the new lab 180 square feet of space and has increased the test menu to 32 basic and moderately complex test procedures. In the near future implementation of a sickle cell and HIV screening program will be added.
When Tim is not teaching hematology at Saint Louis University or doing research, or serving as president for ASCLS Missouri or chairing the Hematology/Hemostasis Scientific Assembly or publishing articles in CLS or fielding questions on the ASCLS consumer network or speaking at meetings or being a father of two daughters, he is leading a medical mission group to Haiti for a two-week mission in May. Assembling the mission group and procuring the supplies for the trip takes all year. His medical-team members are made up of family members, health care workers, nurses, CLS students, graduate students, colleagues and anyone the Lord leads to go. A church may subsidize team members or they pay their own way. The team stays on a protected missionary compound two blocks from the Bethesda clinic. The compound generates its own electricity and is much like church camp with few modern conveniences. The purpose of the annual mission trip is to assess the lab test menu, inventory supplies, implement new procedures, educate the lab staff and help them conduct mass screening of the village people. From data collected each trip, Tim spends the remainder of the year collecting and shipping supplies needed for his clinic. He ponders new test procedures that could be implemented the next trip.
In the summer of 2006 Tim tried something new. He took a missionary physician and half of his team to a remote mountain village to provide a two-day mobile clinic. To get to the remote village they loaded 15 boxes of medical and lab supplies on a truck and drove for two hours until the road ended. Eight mountain villagers with 12 donkeys met them at the bottom of the mountain. The remainder of the trek involved a two-hour hike straight up the mountain with the donkeys transporting 15 boxes of laboratory and medical supplies. When they reached the mountain village, they serenaded by a children's choir singing a greeting in English. The next day a temporary clinic was set up on the dirt floor of a church and a two-day free health clinic was provided for 104 people from the village. Three of the 104 villagers seen were seriously ill and were transported down the mountain to receive additional medical care in a city hospital. One was a three-year old boy with a temperature of 104.8 and a white count of 35,000/ul. The doctor's diagnosis was bacterial meningitis. He would have surely died if the mobile clinic had not arrived. Now the mountain folks now bring their sick to the Bethesda clinic for help.
Tim Randolph goes way beyond establishing labs and consulting with the employees in Haitian clinics. He spends 25% of his time there in ministry to the people of the village, the clinic staff and to members of his team by preaching at clinic worship services. He is often invited to preach in local Haitian churches. Tim is not an ordained minister but he feels called by God to minister at all times as opportunities arise. He attributes his ability to conduct devotional services to his many years of intense Bible study and his deep faith. Perhaps Tim's experience playing in a rock band during college developed his ability to lead and entertain with confidence.
How can we get involved with this ASCLS hero and his mission? Easy! You can support his mission by donating money and materials to RWM. Money is necessary to ship materials and supplies to Haiti quarterly and to defray part of Tim's expenses when he leads the volunteer team each year. RWM needs a good minivan, phlebotomy supplies (outdated is okay), hemacytometers, heparanized hematocrit tubes, glass slides, cover slips, Thoma WBC pipets, transfer pipets and latex gloves (medium and large). If you want direct involvement, you can volunteer to be on one of the mission teams. To learn more about Tim Randolph, an ASCLS hero, go to the Randolph World Missions website at www.randolphworldministries.org and see for yourself that this valuable member of our profession is even more valuable to the many patients he has helped and saved in Haiti.
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