Global Member Care, Volume Two: Crossing Sectors for Serving Humanity

by Kelly O’Donnell & Michèle Lewis O’Donnell, editors

William Carey Library

—Reviewed by William Peed, global ministry program director, Kingswood University, Sussex, NB, Canada

HUMANITARIAN, HUMAN HEALTH, and human resource workers in today’s flat world will benefit from the contributions the member care personnel offer each other in Global Member Care. Editors Kelly and Michèle O’Donnell keenly capture the importance of broadly learning from specialized groups that offer community care. Drawing from sources such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations General Assembly, and World Vision, and lesser known entities like Overseas Development Institute and Families in Global Transition, the editors relate the value of collective wisdom from groups that serve humanity.

The book is divided into four sections. In part one, the reader is invited to see how the crossing of sectors, or “specialized mission/aid personnel and sending groups” (p. xv), is significant in serving others. To successfully navigate through the sectors, one must hold to core beliefs, while being open to the ideas of others. The global challenges facing our world (such as HIV) require us to do no less than this. At the end of this section, the editors include the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” that was created by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The reader acquires a sobering realization of the broad responsibilities each member country has for the rights of its peoples. Parts two, three, and four highlight “good practices” in the humanitarian, human health, and human resource sectors, respectively.

This volume provides invaluable insights from the contributions of those working for organizations that may or may not be faith-based or government-funded. Representative chapter titles catch the reader’s eye: Spiritual and Mental Health in Humanitarian Contexts; Healthy Women, Healthy World; and Humans Abusing Humans: Smuggling, Trafficking, and Abduction.

The fact that the book is only a few clicks away makes it that much more desirable for one’s e-library. Related resources, including urls to videos and other online sources, are listed at the end of most chapters. The application section at the beginning of each part would have more impact if the editors would provide specific points pertinent to each section, rather than giving the same generic list.

Through a broad overview of global member care, the editors do an excellent job of promoting greater appreciation for cross-sectoral interchange that will result in fuller service to humanity. In that sense, the book may have less appeal to a reader who wants substantive knowledge in any one sector.

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EMQ, Vol. 51, No. 1 pp. 117-118. Copyright  © 2015 Billy Graham Center for Evangelism.  All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMQ editors.

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