Mission Arlington clinic benefits from Texas Rangers gift

Even before the Texas Rangers clinched a World Series championship, the team and its charitable foundation scored a huge victory for children and families in need as far as Tillie Burgin, founding executive director of Mission Arlington, was concerned.

The Texas Rangers and Major League Baseball selected Mission Arlington as a World Series Legacy Gift recipient. The Legacy Gift program is an MLB initiative to support worthy causes in communities that host its premiere events each season—the mid-summer All-Star Game and the World Series fall classic.

Mission Arlington will apply the gift toward the expansion of its medical clinic, which offers health care at no cost to more than 12,000 patients each year.

“We don’t turn people away. It’s a place of refuge and love that the Lord has put together,” said Burgin, who founded Mission Arlington in 1986.

Mission Arlington plans to add seven examining rooms and a triage room to its clinic. One pediatric examining room will be decorated in Texas Rangers team colors and markings.

“People line up for the clinic at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, Monday through Friday,” said Clark Burgin, operations manager at Mission Arlington and Tillie Burgin’s grandson.

The number of patients served by the clinic grew 11 percent from 2021 to 2022, and it increased another 17 percent in the past year, with a 75 percent rise in pediatric cases, he noted.

‘One life at a time’

The numbers served by Mission Arlington’s clinic and its multiple other ministries—as well as its outreach Bible studies and mission congregations at 360 apartments and other locations throughout Arlington, Grand Prairie and Fort Worth—are impressive. But Tillie Burgin prefers to focus on individuals, not statistics.

“It’s one life at a time, ministering to the people God brings us who allow us to get involved in their lives,” she said. “People with no hope find Christ here.”

The Texas Rangers are longtime supporters of Mission Arlington, providing toys for children at Christmas, volunteers to deliver meals at Thanksgiving and funds to meet urgent needs in times of distress.

“They are about more than just baseball. They are people who really care about other people and this community,” said Jim Burgin, communications director at Mission Arlington and Tillie Burgin’s son.

A significant number of Christians work with the Rangers organization, Tillie Burgin added. “So, we speak the same language.”

At this point, Mission Arlington doesn’t yet know the exact amount of the World Series Legacy gift or precisely how much it will increase the clinic’s capacity to serve patients. But Tillie Burgin is trusting in God’s provision.

“It will be exactly as God planned it to be, so there’s no need for speculation,” she said. “I’m sure people will fill those rooms, and we’ll need more as God continues to allow us to be his hands and feet.

“We want them to know when they come to this place, they’ve been in his presence.”