Soul providers

Health Care | Doctors at Georgia clinic and elsewhere show the "difference between the American Dream and the Christian Dream" | Jamie Dean

Elizabeth Benson

AUGUSTA, Ga.—Grant Scarborough doesn't mind using a second-hand desk. The 37-year-old physician licensed in both internal and pediatric medicine could enjoy a far fancier set-up than the modest, Christian clinic he helps run in Augusta, Ga. But a Bible verse inscribed on a thank-you note hanging near Scarborough's donated office chair explains the physician's perspective: "He who gives to the poor will lack nothing."

Robert Campbell's used desk sits next to Scarborough's station in a small office space in the Christ Community Health Services of Augusta. In the shadow of a used car lot advertising deals for buyers with "good or bad credit," the clinic's one-story building is situated in one of Augusta's impoverished, inner-city neighborhoods. Like many of the crumbling houses nearby, bars cover the renovated clinic's blue-shuttered windows.