Fort Payne pediatrician engages pivotal ministry at home, abroad

Mike Story, a pediatrician from Fort Payne, is reaching the nations both in his hometown and across the globe. Three years ago, he helped institute the DeKalb Baptist Interfaith Ministry in Fort Payne, a free weekly medical clinic in a rapidly-growing Hispanic community. Already, more than 100 professions of faith have been made by patients attending the clinic.
   
“Every patient is a soul in search of a Savior,” Story said.
   
The clinic offers a wide range of assistance, including administering medication, offering free counseling and providing services for the whole family.
   
He is among the doctors who rotate working at the clinic. In addition to that ministry, he is also actively involved in The Way Home (TWH), a ministry for unwed mothers who, for one reason or another, cannot remain at home.
   
Living in an unfamiliar Christian environment, each one of the females is allowed to stay up to six months after delivery. TWH recently renovated a house in order to be able to have up to four girls live there at one time.
   
Financial contributor and often the doctor who examines the newborn babies, Story’s support of the organization is helping to reach lost people right where he lives. But his ministry doesn’t stop there.
   
Story has been on two medical missions trips to the island of Mindinao in the Philippines and recently returned a third time from a trip working with a construction team there.
   
Although he was out of his comfort zone on a construction team because he’s used to being in charge, he saw this trip as an “urgent need.” 
   
He helped facilitate getting others from his church — First Baptist Church, Fort Payne — to join him in the project.
   
Story anticipates going on another medical missions trip next summer to the Philippines, although getting off work for an extended period of time is a challenge.
   
He pushes himself during the winter months in order to be able to go on a yearly missions trip.
   
“Winter is always there to finance the summer,” he said.
   
He was accompanied by his father on his first trip in 2000, a trip the two of them still share tears about when it’s discussed.
   
“I know that what I do in a week doesn’t change anything physically, but I hope to make an eternal contribution,” Story said.
   
“Mike’s medical clinics allow us to make inroads to new villages that might normally be hostile to the gospel,” said Southern Baptist missionary Jess Jennings, also from Alabama.
   
Story’s entire family — wife Tammy, two daughters and a son — joined him on a trip with M-Fuge to Bolivia in 2003.
    
He says the saddest thing he has ever seen on such trips was untreated breast cancer, closely followed by children with clubbed feet.
   
“It’s something that would be treated so easily in the States,” he said. Story’s view of Christians around the world and how God is working has grown increasingly larger with each trip. It’s a vision that has inspired him to reach the nations on Alabama soil.