The Rev. Barbara Evans has a lot to work on these days. The Baptist minister is a doctoral candidate in health education at Teachers College and is in the process of launching her dream project, the Health Education Institute in Mount Vernon, New York. Evans also currently serves as minister of health and wholeness at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon. Part of the funding from the institute comes from her work at Harlem Hospital, where she is a registered nurse. Evans has degrees from Mary-Mount College, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Columbia. Her work at Harlem Hospital has given her a unique perspective on health issues within the black community. Evans says she was called to the ministry in 1989, and since then has worked to blend her career in health care with her calling. She hopes the insititute will bring together faith, medicine, and health, to care for the whole person.

"People need a place to talk about their problems beyond a hospital setting," Evans said of her proposed institute during a recent lecture at the College of New Rochelle in Manhattan. "Too many people have no understanding of their illness, the symptoms, and what the operation procedures will be. My aim with the institute is to provide health information as I pursue my health-and-wholeness ministry. I will have a doctor walk a patient through their ailments and explain the
possible surgery."

The article, entitled "Black New Yorkers: A minister for your body and soul" appeared in the April 22nd edition of the New York Amsterdam News.

Published Thursday, Apr. 24, 2003