
Feature
In the Service of the King
Medical missions are the hands and Heart of Jesus
One Sunday afternoon, when I was eight years old, a college professor challenged me to give up my childhood dream of becoming a veterinarian. Instead of treating dogs and cats, he suggested that I consider serving God as a medical missionary, using healing skills to win the hearts of people for Jesus Christ.
Some missionaries can remember a specific call from God, like an audible voice, directing them to follow Him as a missionary. For me, sitting in my living room that day, the call couldn’t have been clearer—even if the voice wasn’t exactly a heavenly one. I knew from that moment that my trajectory included college, medical school and a life of service in far-away places.
Now, 37 years later, my wife, Chris, and I have been serving with the C&MA in Asia for 10 years. I can’t imagine a more rewarding life. We are honored to serve hurting and needy people in the Name of Christ, irrespective of their ability to pay. We don’t have to worry about HMO contracts, Medicare payments, insurance payer woes, health care reform or malpractice premiums. Instead, we find desperate, hurting people—for whom Christ died—living in untold misery. They are not able to afford proper care for such treatable illnesses as tuberculosis, obstructed childbirth, hyperthyroidism or a broken bone. Their culture and families have little time for them. Our skills make a huge difference in alleviating their pain. In the process, some of them find the love of the One who wants to give them a new and beautiful life.
So, straight up: I’m recruiting. In these last days, there remains a door cracked open for committed Christian medical people to press through, tossing our lives and training into the ring for our Savior, Jesus Christ. This is NOT the moment for us to be timidly circling the wagons or ruminating over the decimation of our equity funds. There are more lost, hurting people in this world than ever before. Many will respond to the love of Christ at the hands of a compassionate good Samaritan, who, for the sake of Christ, binds their wounds and cares for them when all others have just passed them by. Trained medical workers with strong Christian ethics and a truly Christian worldview are scarce. We few can make a difference on behalf of our King!
The use of our medical skills often provides opportunities for presenting the gospel in ways that aren’t available to traditional missionaries. Through our specialized training, God has equipped us with unique keys that He can use to unlock hardened hearts and rescue many.
God can use such simple acts of Christian kindness to open the spiritual eyes of hurting people. We have seen the lost come to Christ in response to treating a child’s severe tuberculosis; performing a hysterectomy on an elderly woman with a prolapsed uterus; surgically draining a young woman’s abdominal abscess; and making a trip to a distant village to tend the wounds of an elderly land mine victim. Lost hearts are more open to spiritual truth when physical suffering has first been tended.
The “face” of medical missions outreach looks quite different from one location to another. However, the ultimate goal is always to place our skills at the feet of Christ for His use in building His Kingdom. We want to see disciples made for Christ and churches established in every nation. At the end of the day, the number of patients treated isn’t important. What is important is that we are the hands and heart of Jesus to each person God sends our way.
It seems like yesterday I was a youth planning to be a medical missionary. Today, I’m a middle-aged doctor, living out the call. In a few short tomorrows, I’ll be too old to return, left with only my fading memories of joy from our years of foreign medical service for Christ. So it has been for generations of medical missionaries. The need for medical missionaries has only increased, not lessened, over the centuries. It is a role for young (or young at heart), determined professionals committed to service for the King. In these last days, may the King raise up an energetic corps of committed medical servants who will use their talents and skills to help bring life to this gasping world.
“‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. . . .’” (Mark 10:29–31).

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