Blog
This blog explores how our medical work can align with God’s purposes. We don’t have to guess how to connect our work to the Kingdom of God. Understanding how healthcare fits into the whole story of the Bible will help us recover a sure foundation. A solid integration of healthcare and mission will help us move ahead with confidence and joy.
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One week ago today my own mother passed away. At 87 years, she died in her sleep in the dementia unit of the nursing home. A nurse working there commented, “In my 36 years of nursing I have not seen…
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Healer of soul and body
I have treated patients in Ethiopia, Asia and North America, and know something of the troubles that patients bring to doctors. Here we read that Jesus also attracted many people who sought Him out for healing. Since He is the…
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A god-complex?
“When we look at today’s church it is easy to see the prevalence of individualism among ministers and priests. Not too many of us have a vast repertoire of skills to be proud of, but most of us still feel…
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Center for Health in Mission
The Center for Health and Mission is a website with resources such as an online Christian Journal of Global Health, best practice guidelines and some good resources. Here is their description of the kind of spaces they want to create:…
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Seeking the welfare of your captors
God removed His people from Jerusalem because of their sin, yet He wants them to seek the welfare of their captors, the fierce Babylonians. “Welfare” in the Lord’s command is the translation of the Hebrew word, “shalom.” Rather than retaliate…
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Due credit to missionaries – from the Lancet Global Health Blog
in HistoryAn overlooked WWI legacy: maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa — from the Lancet Global Health Blog, November 2014 While medical missions provided 25-50% of maternal and child health care in sub-Saharan Africa throughout most of the 20th century, their…
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"And who is my neighbor?"
Yesterday I was talking with a nursing teacher who is an expert in the care of women with childbirth injuries called fistulas. SIM has a hospital caring for these women in rural Niger, West Africa. She is considering ways to…
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So what do we mean by healing, anyway?
As a young person in medical school, my view of health was confined to understanding disease processes, drugs and physical causes. Health had to do with the body, and things of the spirit didn’t overlap the physical world. As a…
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The wounded healer
When I arrived in Ethiopia in 1986 the country had been impoverished by communism, famine and long-standing poverty. I was trained in community health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and was ready to roll out a comprehensive community…
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"Why have you stricken us so that we are beyond healing?"
As healers we must face the limits of healing. Life and healing are a gift of God, and yet because of sin, He has set limits. Death itself is a limit to healing. We were created by God as the…
