Category: Future of medical and healthcare mission
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A lesson from the “secret manual”: diversity in medical missions
A Nigerian lab technician serves in Malawi, and an Indian dentist shares Christ’s love in Liberia. Missionaries are increasingly coming from new sending countries in the Global South. As God raises missionaries worldwide, the future of Christian mission will undoubtedly be more diverse and international. Medical missionary Matthew Loftus wrote, “It is exciting to see…
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“A certain weightiness has settled on the hospital.”
Here is part of an email from a missionary doctor and his wife, who serve in a mission hospital in Africa. Healthcare missions can be discouraging, even in a reasonably well-functioning setting. And while we can be discouraged, hope arises when we step back to gain a wider, gospel perspective. As we head into this…
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Health and the Bible
The Seoul statement from the Fourth Lausanne Congress identifies gaps in fulfilling God’s missionary purpose. One of those gaps, ironically, is the Bible itself. It’s not just that many modern people ignore or even scorn the Bible; the challenge is that Bible-believing Christians themselves often do not read and obey it! How can the Bible…
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Threats to the future of healthcare mission
What are the dangers ahead? What threatens the future of healthcare mission? This is the fourth part of a SWOT analysis of the health of healthcare mission.
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Opportunities for healthcare mission
Medical professionals can’t meet the health needs of the world alone. As Christians, we are called to collaborate for the glory of Christ and the flourishing of humankind.
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Weakness of healthcare mission
Forty-nine years ago, I found myself as a medical student in a remote mission hospital in Kenya. After just one year of clinical rotations in school, I grappled with the challenges of diagnosing and treating patients. Many a night, I would return home and pore over my books, pondering cases like, ‘What could this case…
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The Strengths of Healthcare Mission
What is the future of Christian healthcare mission? We will examine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
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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 just went home to be…
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Listen up!
Young doctors learn an old practice!
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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: In planning for successful handover from foreign (or mission) ownership to local, these success criteria can give us a helpful roadmap. Although one may not be able to do much about…