The below article was originally published in the Citrus County Chronicle on June 16th, 2023.
By Nancy Kennedy
Last November, when the opportunity to go on a medical missions trip to Brazil came up, Ken Hinkle felt God was telling him to go.
However, as Hinkle explained, he had been taking care of his wife, Martha, who had been going through cancer treatment for more than four years.
“I didn’t want to leave her,” Hinkle said. “Plus, I’m 73 and diabetic, I have a defibrillator and chronic kidney disease. But I knew God was saying, ‘I’ve got this.’ So, I stepped out in faith, put my trust in his hands that he would take care of Martha and signed up.”
Hinkle, the former Inverness city councilman and also a career sonographer, and a group from his church, Cornerstone Baptist Church in Inverness, recently returned from a nine-day trip to provide medical care to people in villages along the Amazon River.
They went as part of the Gainesville-based Amazon Vision Ministries, going to conduct a medical clinic for nearby villagers and do VBS (Vacation Bible School) for the kids.
“We went from Orlando to Panama City, Panama, then to Manaus, Brazil, then took a two-hour bus ride to Manicapura and then an eight-hour boat ride on the Amazon River just to get to where we were going,” Hinkle said.
Six weeks before the trip, his wife finished her chemotherapy and the following week a PET scan showed the cancer was gone.
“That was God’s answer to me that he was taking care of her,” Hinkle said.
So, at 73, the oldest person in the group, Hinkle took what he called a trip of a lifetime, providing medical care to some of the poorest people on earth.
The team had brought 10 50-pound bags of medical supplies, 500 pairs of reading glasses and a bunch of soccer balls.
“We did 40 or 50 ultrasounds, found some gallstones and an ovarian cancer, which was sad,” he said. “We did ultrasounds on three pregnant women and got to tell one that she was having a little boy, and she was thrilled.
“One woman, this was her 10th baby and she had never seen an ultrasound before, and she was ecstatic about seeing the baby before it was born. We saw more than 400 people in the clinic in six days.”
He said a lot of ministry took place, too.
“A young woman came in, depressed, wouldn’t lift up her head,” he said. “We learned that her 1-year-old son had drowned three months before.”
Hinkle said a nurse on their team had lost her own young son to a drowning accident years ago and was able to talk to the woman.
“She came all the way across the world because God knew this young woman would be there,” Hinkle said. “They talked for over an hour and the woman left with her head up and a smile.”
He said a few things surprised him. As poor as the people were, everyone had electricity and cellphones – and he saw push-button pay phones in the middle of the forest.
He said he also saw concrete roads in the middle of the jungle, but no cars.
“Everyone travels by boat,” he said, “long, skinny boats. The school ‘bus’ was a boat that goes up and down the river, stopping to pick up kids for school.”
Hinkle said while there he got a nickname.
One night he told his story about meeting and marrying his wife and about her cancer and how God has healed her.
“I’m a Baptist, and I’m pretty quiet in church,” he said, “but that night I raised my hands and shouted, ‘HALLELUJAH!’ After that they called me the Hallelujah Man.
“I’ve been a Christian for 53 years, and I’ve been on other mission trips in the U.S., but this one was different. This trip showed me what it means to totally rely on God. I’d been praying for Martha for years, many people have been praying for her, and I didn’t think I could leave her.
“But God said, ‘I got this,’ and I trusted him and he healed her. That doesn’t mean it (cancer) might not come back in the future, but for this point in time, he healed her.”
Nancy Kennedy can be reached at 352-564-2927 or by email at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com.