Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12.
My wife and I are part of a mission agency that seeks to address not just our sin and alienation from God, but also the effects of sin in the communities we serve. When we went to the southern Ethiopia town of Arba Minch in the late 1980s we expected…
How can Jubilee help us respond to COVID-19?
We are in the midst of one of the worst global pandemics of a century. What does it have to do with healthcare and Christian mission? There are many lessons we are learning. But one clear message is that this pandemic is much more than the disease of COVID-19. While…
Medical Missions, an assessment by a historian
Sent to Heal by Christoffer H Grundmann Christoffer Grundmann writes, “Most nineteenth-century people, medics and theologians alike, paid little, if any attention to medical missions — even if they were addressing mission. And when they did, they almost always did so in very limited confines, leaving…
Highlights shared by SIM medical missionaries
We have 250 medical professionals serving in SIM. We recently surveyed some of them. We asked each one to share a highlight of their ministry. Here are some of their responses. One bullet point per person: The opportunity to develop relationships with Muslims as patients, staff and colleagues Working with…
How can Jubilee help us respond to COVID-19?
We are in the midst of one of the worst global pandemics of a century. What does it have to do with healthcare and Christian mission? There are many lessons we are learning. But one clear message is that this pandemic is much more than the disease of COVID-19. While…
“We all sat at the same table.”
When resources are scarce and medical professionals are few, one gets overwhelmed with the physical needs of patients needing care. Emotional, spiritual and community care seem like a luxury. Yet the challenge is how to make a long range impact in these communities. Here is an example from the…
Want to change the world? Invest in institutions
SIM’s first Asian medical missionary, Dr. Andrew Ng, served for years at Galmi hospital in Niger, and later provided leadership for SIM from Asia. He always had a youthful vision for how Jesus is shaping the world, and a special love for Jesus’ work in medical missions. And while he…
Sustainable church hospitals
A little publication in 1998 surveyed 43 church-related mission hospitals to identify criteria for sustainability. They identified nine critical success factors in the process: Vision/mission/objectives. These hospitals had a Christ-centered vision that had been translated into ‘do-able’ mission statements and behavioral objectives to guide board and staff members at all…