Christian mission hospitals should be God’s institutions of healing in a world of suffering. They have the potential to ‘close the gap’ in access to healthcare and provide high quality accessible services in the most remote and needy parts of the world to those who need them the most – the poor and marginalized.
In 1993, my wife Ann and me moved to a remote part of Assam in northeast India. We were led by verses in the Bible (Jeremiah 29:11-13 for me and Isaiah 6:8 for Ann) to what God wanted us to do with our lives. Over the following 27 years, God took us by our hands and provided us with all the encouragement, strength and wisdom required to transform a closed-down hospital to a thriving institution bringing healing and transformation to many surrounding communities. (1) We were not alone, God brought many committed staff to join us over the years to make this possible.
I was privileged to be invited to speak at six sessions on “Medical Missions” at the (virtual) South Asian regional conference of the International Christian Medical and Dental Association in November 2020. I am not an expert on medical missions but spoke from our experience in walking with God and witnessing a great transformation take place in our hospital.
The six talks can be viewed here along with a seventh talk given at the Annual Conference of the Allied Health Professionals section of the Christian Medical Association of India. Each link opens a blog-post with a short description of the content of the video that follows:
- An introduction to medical missionary work, its promise and the attitudes that are important to be successful: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/01/31/medical-missionary-work-introduction-attitudes-and-promise/
- Strategic Planning for a mission hospital (for pioneering work as well as for existing hospitals) and stock-taking to finetune future plans: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/02/03/medical-missionary-work-strategic-planning-and-stock-taking/
- Leadership in our hospitals, management/governance structure, recruitment and retention as well as succession planning for mission hospitals: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/02/07/medical-missionary-work-leadership-and-human-resource-management/
- Nurturing and motivating students and staff so that they may be well prepared and work to their full potential in medical missions: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/02/18/medical-missions-nurturing-and-motivating-students-and-staff/
- Sustainable trategies to make good quality healthcare accessible to the poor and marginalized: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/02/19/medical-missionary-work-poor-centric-strategies/
- Other work that can be done in mission hospitals and concluding thoughts: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/02/22/medical-missionary-work-non-medical-work-and-concluding-thoughts/
- Medical missionary work for the allied health professional – our technicians, pharmacists and other hospital support staff: https://the-sparrowsnest.net/2021/02/02/medical-missionary-work-for-the-allied-health-professional/
These talks are based on my experience of nearly 40 years in medical mission hospitals and medical college campuses. I hope that some of them may be applicable to every situation. May God be the source of all wisdom, strength and encouragement to the listeners to these messages and help us to plan our God-given work wisely.
The Sparrow's Nest 