Unreached People Groups

Community engagement is the facilitation of communities to own their own problems and solutions within their resources. Key cross cultural communications competencies and skills are necessary to effectively facilitate community engagement.

This session will share answers on how to become a medical missionary. Each person who attends will receive a 3 x 5 card when they enter the room. The moderator John McVay will group and select questions, direct them to appropriate panelists, and receive questions from the floor. Probable topics discussed from questions expected are: Guidance, Agencies, Training, Funding, Singles, and Families.

Over 96M Americans live in medically underserved areas (MUAs) right here in the United States. Most MUAs are located in strategic areas of need where service is desperately needed and where people are ripe for the gospel. Medical mission pioneers are responding to needs in our own nation by applying in domestic settings proven strategies that have worked in challenging international fields. These...

Traditional ways of serving in medical missions have included working in mission hospitals, clinics and aspects of community development and public health. Less well-known—but significant—medical mission ministries from the beginning include medical education and cooperating with local and national governments in planning or providing healthcare, including national healthcare. As entry into many a...

Medicine is one means of meeting the needs of people throughout the world. Working with the disabled opens closed doors and is an outreach to those I consider "unreached". Three to ten percent of the world is considered to have some type of disability. Only a very few in the developing world can find care to improve their plight in life. Surgical rehabilitation, and its associated care,...

Knowing medicine or dentistry is not enough to be a successful missionary. There are many things beyond medicine you need to master to be effective. You need to learn how to recruit, train and supervise people. You will likely be involved in fund raising, program design and development, evangelism, leadership, government relations, project proposals, public speaking and much more. This session wil...

How did 145,000 Muslims find Jesus in a single decade? Shadanke faced a decision: He could woo foreign health-care professionals to Sierra Leone to meet dire medical needs among his people. Or he could partner with a few foreign health-care professionals to launch out-of-control movements of reproducing Jesus-Communities (churches) that would explode the Kingdom among hundreds of thousands of his...

What’s your ultimate long-term goal? Is your dream to vaccinate multiple thousands of Berber children against preventable child-hood diseases or … to launch movements of missional-communities (churches) among the Berber who will reach all the Berber for Christ … and vaccinate all their children too? Is your goal to treat five thousand TB patients among the Bedo of Jordan or … to establish reproduc...

In management, there is a saying, "you get what you inspect, not what you expect". However, how do we know exactly what to inspect in the transformational development process? for example, if we looked only at the instruments showing the vial signs of a patient in a coma but kept alive on life support systems, the instruments would show that vital signs are within the ideal range. Howeve...

"Justice" has multiple meanings in the Bible. When the psalmist declared that "righteousness and justice are the foundation" of the Messiah's throne (Psalm 89:14), he was speaking of an equity and fairness that goes beyond punishment for bad people. God's zeal for justice is found throughout the Old and New Testaments. This breakout session will define biblical justice,...

Are you and your family planning to be missionaries in the US or overseas and wondering the impact on your family life? This session will provide advice from a couple who served 8 years in Asia, where 3 of their 4 daughters were born. They'll give suggestions, some of it learned the hard way, for how you and your family can thrive on the mission field. Included will be strategies and insights...

Mission Medical: Assessing and Addressing Spiritual Needs of Patients We'll discuss (1) why healthcare professionals have been reluctant to take a spiritual history, (2) the positive association of spirituality/religiosity and physical/mental health, and (3) several spiritual history tools to consider for use in clinical care.

This seminar will examine the biblical call to make disciples and most importantly how
 to do this. You will learn the practical aspects of both having a discipler/mentor and serving as a discipler/mentor for someone else. If you ever have or have ever wanted to invest your life strategically into another person, then this seminar is for you!

Although the principles of medical and dental care are the same worldwide, the need for translation, existing local health beliefs, customs, teaching methods, and other social and political factors may present barriers which have a significant impact on the effectiveness of efforts to teach healthcare professionals cross-culturally. This session will examine several of these.

This session will compare short term mission efforts which provide direct care to patients in an area to those which provide education and advanced training to healthcare professionals, which most often have a longer term benefit both to those who are taught by these healthcare professionals and to patients needing healthcare in that area.

God has called you to missions but how do you make a smooth transition from student to missionary physician? Join us as we look at steps to take during your education and training to prepare you for a career in medical missions. We’ll examine what questions you need to ask, what you should be aware of and what can you do over these next years to be equipped to move from training to ministry.

Have you longed to integrate your Christian faith into your patient care – both on the mission field abroad and in your work at home? Not sure how to do this in a caring, sensitive, and relevant manner? This “working” session will explore the ethical basis for spiritual care plus provide you with profession, timely, and practical methods to care for the whole person in the clinical setting.

Is it possible to equip indigenous believers to meet the needs of their own people so that the work continues when the short term team returns home? Jaime will share stories from the mission field regarding training and equipping indigenous Christ-followers with especially designed tools so that they can meet the felt needs of their own people, through which they develop relationships and have the...

Reaching out to the tribal people of Ecuador

This session will review the missionary influence on WHO evidence-based international guidelines to achieve global development goals. Lack of implementation of these Biblically-based guidelines has resulted in a world-wide “Slow-Motion Disaster". The global epidemic of non-communicable diseases primarily due to obesity and smoking recently resulted in the second ever UN General Assembly on He...

How can a ministry continue after we leave? Drawing from the speaker's mission expereince and using case studies and an interactive format, participants will explore successful principles and strategies for sustainability in medical missions.

Effective Ministry Partnership Development is the key to raising resources for life and ministry. We’ll address how correct thinking, biblical principles and practical principles are the key. This session will explain “why people give,” “how to effectively gain their support and involvement,” “ways to grow your list of prospects” and “what the basis is for successful long-term financial partnershi...

We would all like to believe that as we reach out to share our medical expertise and the love and the compassion of Christ we will be safe, but is there any place in which we can be safe today? Security as we know is it is not the absence of danger, but the presence of the Lord. Being good stewards of the great blessings given to us of volunteers serving the least, the lost and the last is our obl...

Short-term missions offer a unique opportunity for sustained spiritual formation away from the distractions of a busy life in the U.S., in a setting where the traveler is often far removed from their comfort zone and power zone. This workshop presents ideas and guidelines for the trip leader in recruiting, selecting, and preparing trip participants to act as the Body of Christ in their service, an...

Everyone who has been on a medical mission has some embarrassing and/or hilarious stories of cultural insensitivity or language blunders. Sometimes the events are just funny. Sometimes they can seriously compromise the intended impact of the whole mission, including our Christian witness. This session offers perspective, spiritual grounding and practical tools for building healthy relationships, a...