EMQ Volume 59 Issue 4

By Heather Pubols | Healthcare missionaries around the world, today, follow Jesus' example. They continue to demonstrate God’s love by relieving the suffering of many.

By Joshua Bogunjoko | Medical missions, especially among least reached communities, seems difficult and the financial proposition absurd. Yet all people need healthcare. Healthcare missions is an open door to ministry which Jesus himself demonstrated as he met the physical and spiritual needs of people he ministered to. More missions organizations need to explore this opportunity alongside their other strategies.

By Neil Thompson | Healthcare missions has a long history in Christianity, which continues to grow and develop. But how did it begin, how has it changed, and where is it going?

By Rebekah Naylor | In the twenty-first century is healthcare missions viable and strategic? Are we mandated to meet the physical needs of people? If so, what do healthcare mission strategies look like today? Going forward, should we expect new evolving avenues for effective healthcare missions in view of political and population trends?

By Daniel W. O’Neill | Global health engagement is a key part of church planting efforts and an indispensable partner in meeting global goals for sustainable development. Health and healing can be experienced and, for the church, can remain as an essential pursuit – a sign of the presence of God, and a foretaste and anticipation of God’s intention for the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth

By Richard Davis, Evelyn Mbugua, Peter Halestrap, Ken Muma, Faith Lelei, and Chege Macharia | Ralph Winter describes four stages of development in mission/church relations: pioneer, parent, partner, and finally, participant. These stages can also be applied to mission hospitals particularly as they relate to the roles of expatriate and national medical missionaries. Analyzing these stages can help us discover where mission hospital development is stuck, and how to progress forward.

By Anil Cherian | My wife, Shalini, and I moved from India to East Africa as medical missionaries, in 2014. In partnership with others, we trained more than 100 South Sudanese people to help fill the country’s desperate need for more healthcare workers. We also discipled young men and women to encourage them to follow Jesus Christ. And through the combination of these ministries, we saw the seeds of transformation sown into our students and their communities.

By Daniel Graham and Lena Wensel | Integrated into a holistic healthcare approach to missions, veterinary medicine provides an opportunity to engage the rural poor in agricultural communities through community development. Building relationships of trust based on care for livestock, Christian veterinarians support public health through nutrition promotion and disease prevention, all while expressing Christ’s love for others through their vocation.

By Latha Mathew and Lindsey Miller | IHS Global developed a training process that equips healthcare workers around the globe to be witnesses for Jesus in their healthcare settings. The course combines curriculum (translated into global heart languages), training (in-person, virtual, or hybrid), and follow-up led by trained leaders who have a heart for equipping others and for sharing Christ.

By Boureima Diallo and Daniel O'Neill | A fruitful disciple-making movement in Burkina Faso has utilized community health outreaches as part of a holistic strategy to foster peace, make disciples, and plant churches among the Fulani people group. This indigenous and collaborative approach is a strategically significant way to meet whole-person needs in a local context.

By Karen Bomilcar | The church has tremendous potential to help communities reach new levels of wholeness. This often-unexplored context for healing provides an incredible opportunity for a body of believers to address issues such as relationships, work, illness, disability, birth, parenting, divorce, substance abuse, aging, and dying.

By Michael Soderling | Global healthcare challenges are complex. Attempts are regularly made to remedy them with technical solutions that do not address root causes. This often perpetuates problems and can cause unintended harm.

By Ronald and Carolyn Klaus | Over time, the church has repeatedly devolved into structures more geared to attracting and inspiring people than to transforming and mobilizing them. Unless we take deliberate steps to prevent it, many of the movements toward God among unreached people groups that we now celebrate could follow the same pattern. Redemptive communities can prevent or at least postpone this process.

By Gene Daniels and Emanuel Prinz | Healthy self-awareness is a key quality of effective pioneer missionaries such as movement catalysts because cultural awareness relies heavily on healthy self-awareness. Research shows that effective movement catalysts demonstrate mature self-awareness concerning their personal traits and ministry competencies, and are especially aware of their own shortcomings.

By Stan Parks | Globally, 1,965 church planting movements (CPMs) are being reported, with approximately 90% of these among current or former unreached people groups. These reports have been compiled by the 24:14 Coalition. Our primary goal has been to find out where the unreached are being reached so we can identify the gaps where the unreached are not being reached. But in the process, we have shared information about movements, globally and regionally, which has led to some people feeling frustrated when they cannot know more.

By Jean Johnson | Pairing foreign healthcare clinics with indigenous gospel and disciple-making efforts may have unintended consequences. They may heal pain on one front but cause it on another.

By Matthew Loftus and Bruce Dahlman | After much time and a great deal of investment, those of us who have been working in medical education missions are starting to see the fruits of our labor as African doctors graduate from their residency programs ready to go to whatever mission field to which God has called them.

By Jim Ritchie | The role and experience of healthcare missionaries (HCMs) is different from other missionaries. HCMs tend to encounter death, suffering, and moral crises many times a day. Though they have experienced death and similar crises during their training or practice in their home countries (particularly if their home country is in the West), few HCMs will have seen such crises in the enormous scale found in the mission field.

By Sherry Liu | One of six families struggles to conceive, a journey that can be challenging and filled with uncertainties. However, a revolutionary fertility app aims to alleviate the frustrations and guesswork associated with getting pregnant. By providing accurate ovulation predictions and cycle tracking, it has become a valuable tool for women worldwide. It also presents a unique opportunity for cross-cultural workers to build connections in communities where the gospel is still unknown in ways that lead to the birth of healthy babies and families transformed by the good news.