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Health Care Missions as a Discipleship Strategy · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. I want you to think about your
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last visit to a doctor. Oh yeah, that is usually a
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pretty specific experience for most of.
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Us right? If you are like most people, you
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probably checked in at a sterile front desk, sat on an
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examination table covered in that crinkly paper, and just
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waited while staring at a chart on the wall.
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Yeah, maybe reading a 5 year old magazine or.
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Something exactly. In our modern context, we
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usually view medicine purely as a scientific transaction.
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You present a broken arm and the Doctor provides a cast.
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Or you present an infection and they write a prescription for
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antibiotics. It is clean, it is expected, and
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it is highly compartmentalized from the rest of our spiritual
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lives. But what if we completely
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shifted that paradigm? What if a medical clinic could
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function as a frontline for the Great Commission?
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That is a massive question and it really challenges how we view
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our daily work. It really does.
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So today we are doing a deep dive into some fascinating
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source material. We are looking at excerpts from
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the book Biblical Missions, Principles, Priorities, and
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Practices by Mark Tatlock and Chris Burnett.
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Specifically, we are going to look closely at a chapter on
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healthcare missions written by Carlin Wendler and Ava Flores.
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The goal of this deep dive is to unpack how clinical work
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operates as a highly structured discipleship strategy.
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We are going to outline the theological bedrock of healing.
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We will also break down the practical steps of medical
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mentorship and then look at 2 striking real world case studies
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from the field. So let's jump right in.
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What stands out immediately in the source material is how it
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challenges our modern, highly secularized view of reality.
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Yeah, it really does. I mean, we live in a society
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that aggressively separates the physical body from the spiritual
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soul, but when we look at the biblical view of disease, that
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artificial separation completely dissolves.
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Right, because to establish our theological bedrock, we have to
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start at the very beginning of redemptive history.
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Yes. Specifically, looking at Genesis
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chapters 2 and 3, the biological reality is that sickness,
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cellular decay, and physical suffering were not original
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features of God's creation. They entered the human
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experience strictly through Adam's fall into sin.
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The curse that God pronounced on humanity in the garden made
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medicine necessary. Sickness is a direct,
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unavoidable result of living in a fallen world marked by total
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depravity. And when we use the term total
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depravity and reformed theology, we mean that corruption touches
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every single aspect of our existence.
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It does not just mean our thoughts are sinful, it means
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our biology is broken. Exactly.
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Our genetic code, our immune systems, and our physical bodies
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are all subjected to decay because the fall.
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Yet as we read through the Old Testament, we consistently see
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God revealing himself as the active preserver and healer of
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his creatures. Well, I have to stop you there
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and play devil's advocate for a moment because that is a massive
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theological claim. Sure, go ahead.
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If total depravity means we are cursed with sickness as a divine
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judgement, isn't intervening with medicine just fighting
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against God's ordained judgement?
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I know people who argue along those lines.
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Yeah, that is a really common pushback.
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They want to insulate God from physical suffering, suggesting
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He just watches it happen from a distance.
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Or they assume we should just let nature take its course.
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Right. But if we are viewing this
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through the lens of the Westminster Confession, we have
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to talk about God's sovereign Providence.
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The confession teaches that God ordains whatsoever comes to
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pass, yet without being the author of sin.
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So how does the believer reconcile the reality of a
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sovereign God with the daily work of treating disease?
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That is a crucial tension to resolve.
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The source material points us directly to the Book of Job to
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understand this mechanism. OK, what does Job say about it?
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In Job chapter 5 verse 18, Eliphaz notes for he inflicts
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pain and gives relief. He wounds and his hands also
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heal. Wow, that verse really shatters
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the idea of a distant hands off creator.
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It does. It establishes that healing is
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fundamentally God's work. When a surgeon operates or when
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a nurse administers an RV, they are not acting outside of God's
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jurisdiction. The believer simply acts as
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God's agent in that moment. Precisely, the medicine does not
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heal apart from the sovereign will of the Creator.
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God is the one who designed the biological mechanisms of
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cellular repair, and He's the one who sovereignly overseas
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their function or failure. Therefore, treating disease is
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an act of participating in God's common grace.
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I like to think of physical symptoms as a check engine light
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for the human condition. Oh, that is a great analogy.
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Think about the last time the check engine light came on in
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your car. You do not just take a piece of
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black tape, cover up the dashboard and pretend everything
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is fine. No, because that light is a
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visible indicator of a much deeper invisible mechanical
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issue happening under the hood. In the same way a fever, a tumor
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or a virus operates as a flashing indicator light of the
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fall. It points straight to the root
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issue of sick sin and our separation from a holy God.
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And the source material gives us a visceral illustration of this
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concept from the Old Testament. It references Numbers chapter
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21, which provides A vivid picture of this dynamic.
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That is the story with the bronze serpent, right?
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Yes, exactly. The Israelites are wandering in
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the desert, complaining and rebelling against God in His
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righteous judgement against their sin.
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God sends fiery serpents among the people.
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Many are bitten and begin to die, so the physical sickness
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here is a direct consequence of their spiritual rebellion.
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But notice the method of salvation God provides.
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He commands Moses to make a bronze serpent and lifted up on
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a pole. Anyone who looked at the bronze
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serpent lived. God linked their physical
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salvation directly to an act of faith.
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He established an undeniable connection between sin, divine
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judgement, and healing. Right.
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The physical remedy required a spiritual posture of faith, and
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establishing the fact that God actively cares about physical
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suffering leads us naturally into the New Testament.
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Yeah, it shows how Christ in the early church put this theology
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into direct physical practice. They did not just stand on
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street corners preaching abstract philosophical concepts.
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No, they met physical needs as a demonstration of the gospels
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reality. I want you, the listener, to
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picture the ministry of Jesus. He was constantly surrounded by
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the sick, the blind and the lame.
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His twofold instruction to the 12 disciples and later to the 70
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was is highly specific. According to Luke 9.2, he told
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them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
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Christ performed the vast majority of his miracles in the
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direct context of severe human suffering.
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Following the earthly ministry of Jesus and the conclusion of
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the Apostolic era, the widespread occurrence of
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instantaneous miraculous healing receded.
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However, practical medical care became the absolute norm for
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believers. We see God sovereignly choosing
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Luke, a Gentile physician, to author a massive portion of the
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New Testament. We also see the apostle Paul
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advising Timothy on his physical health in First Timothy 5.23.
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Paul does not just tell Timothy to pray harder for his ailments.
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He prescribes A practical remedy, telling him to drink a
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little wine for his frequent stomach issues.
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The early church viewed caring for the ill as a direct outflow
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of the concept of the Imago day from Genesis 1.
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Because all people are made in the image of God, they possess
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inherent dignity and are worthy physical care regardless of
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their social standing. History shows us that this
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practice of physical care only grew more structured over time.
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By the 4th century, leaders like Basil and Caesarea were
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operating infirmaries directly out of the local church.
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When we move into the Middle Ages, medieval monastery is
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essentially functioned as the first hospitals in Europe.
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The rhythms of their day completely blended the spiritual
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and the physical. Monks would move fluidly from
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the Chapel for prayer straight to the clinic to treat festering
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wounds. And then we hit the Protestant
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Reformation, which is where I want to push back on a very
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common modern assumption. Oh, what is the assumption?
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You will often hear critics argue that an intense focus on
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rigorous theological study creates cold, detached academics
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who ignore the practical suffering of the world.
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Around them, yes. The idea that theology makes you
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uncaring. Right.
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But the historical record proves the complete opposite.
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A passion for robust biblical doctrine actually fueled the
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Reformers to care for the sick in unprecedented ways.
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John Calvin is a prime example of this reality.
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During his time in Geneva, the city faced devastating outbreaks
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of the bubonic plague. Calvin did not retreat to a
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quiet library to write theology while his neighbors died in the
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streets. He actively organized hospitals
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for the poor. He instituted public health
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practices and ensured that pastors were visiting the sick,
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even at great personal risk. His robust theology of God's
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sovereignty and human dignity demanded a physical response to
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the suffering in his city. Moving forward in history, we
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see William Carey, often called the father of modern missions.
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Carrie utilized a brilliant three-part model for his work in
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India. He established the church, the
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classroom, and the clinic. He understood that these three
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institutions work together to address the holistic needs of a
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community. Following Carrie, we see figures
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like John Scudder, who was the 1st medical missionary sent from
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the United States. Scudder made an incredibly
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astute observation about the nature of his work.
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He noted that the practice of medicine allows the gospel to
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reach years that would otherwise remain completely deaf to the
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message. When you alleviate someone's
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physical agony, you earn a hearing that a street preacher
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might never achieve. That long history of physical
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care sets up the precise definition of what healthcare
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missions or HCM actually looks like in the modern post colonial
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world today. According to the source
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material, healthcare missions is defined as the use of clinical
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or public health activities as a context for missions to take
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place. But the geopolitical landscape
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for this kind of work shifted massively in the late 20th
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century. The defining moment for modern
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healthcare missions occurred with the Almeida Declaration of
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1978. To understand the mechanics of
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this shift, we have to look at the geopolitical climate.
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Post colonial nations were gaining independence and
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building their own governments. They began demanding the right
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to provide primary care for their own populations, rather
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than relying indefinitely on foreign doctors running
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parallel, unaccountable hospital systems.
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They wanted their own citizens trained in medicine.
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This declaration could have been seen as a closed door for
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traditional missionaries. Instead, it created an
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incredible open door for a new strategy.
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Instead of Western doctors flying in, acting as lone
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heroes, treating patients and leaving, the system forced an
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environment designed for cross cultural mentoring.
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Medical professionals could now enter these sovereign nations
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not primarily as solo providers, but as educators and mentors to
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the national staff. This shift reveals A surprising
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structural distinction in proper HCM strategy.
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While sharing the gospel with patients is always a key
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objective, the primary structural target for
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discipleship is actually the coworkers.
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The entire strategy revolves around the national medical
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staff being trained by the missionary.
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The source material outlines 3 major principles for this kind
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of discipleship. The first is the principle of
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time together. We see Jesus modeling this
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perfectly in Mark 3.12, where he chose the disciples simply to be
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with him. They watched his patterns of
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work. They watched his private
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warship. They saw how he interacted with
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hostile Pharisees and how he treated broken outcasts.
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Medical work provides an unparalleled volume of time
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together for a mentor and a student.
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To replicate this model, think about the sheer number of hours
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required in a clinical setting. You are not just meeting a
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student for coffee once a week. No, you are standing shoulder to
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shoulder with them for 12 hour shifts, day after day, month
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after month. The clinical environment strips
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away any polished veneer. It is an environment defined by
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high stress, life and death, stakes and constant pressure.
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In that setting, a student does not just hear what a mentor
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believes, they see how that belief holds up under fire.
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I want you, the listener, to imagine that environment for a
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moment. You are a medical student
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working in an under resourced clinic alongside a veteran
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missionary Dr. How does watching your mentor operate in that
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specific setting shape you differently than sitting in a
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Sunday school class? In a clinic, you are watching
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the mentor break devastating news to a grieving parent.
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You are watching how they handle the intense frustration of
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missing laboratory results or broken equipment.
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You watch them quietly push through hours of tedious late
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night paperwork without complaining.
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You are watching their Reformed theology, Their belief in God's
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sovereignty and human dignity bleed out into their actual
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physical reactions to stress and tragedy.
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That kind of relentless exposure shapes a student's fundamental
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character. It forces the mentors genuine
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faith out into the open. And spending thousands of high
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pressure hours together naturally forces the mentor to
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eventually hand over both the clinical and spiritual reigns to
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the student. This brings us to the second
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hallmark of discipleship and healthcare missions, which is
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the principal responsibility. True discipleship requires
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correction and delegation. Just as Jesus allowed his
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disciples to step into active ministry, modern mentors must
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give their proteges real responsibility and correct them
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when their theology fails. Think of the Gospel accounts.
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When the disciples tried to stop parents from bringing their
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children to Jesus, he corrected them.
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When James and John wanted to call down literal lightning on a
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Samaritan town that rejected them, Jesus rebuked their
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theological framework in real time.
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In a medical missions context, the mentor delegates
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responsibility by asking the student to take on a highly
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specific task. They asked them to conduct a
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spiritual history of the patient.
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I find this concept of a spiritual history absolutely
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fascinating. It is a brilliant analogy.
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It really is. When you go to a regular doctor,
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they take your family medical history.
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They ask if your parents had heart disease or diabetes to
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find out if you were genetically predisposed to certain
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conditions. Taking a spiritual history means
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the medical student is tasked with finding out what the
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patient actually believes caused their illness.
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And depending on where you are in the world, the answers are
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incredibly revealing and require immense discernment.
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You might have a patient who believes they are sick because a
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neighbor cast a witch's spell on them.
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You might have a mother who thinks her child has a deadly
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fever simply because she let the child's feet get cold on the
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floor. Or you might have a patient who
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believes their physical infertility is a direct cosmic
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punishment for a past marital infidelity.
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The underlying world view of the patient dictates how they will
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respond to treatment. You cannot prescribe the correct
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spiritual truth if you do not understand the patient's
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assumptions about reality. You have to know where the
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spiritual infection is rooted before you can apply the gospel
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to it. If a patient believes a demon is
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causing their tuberculosis, handing them an antibiotic
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without addressing their spiritual terror leaves them in
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bondage. Once the student successfully
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uncovers the patient's worldview, the mentor guides
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them through a specific progression of prayer.
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The source material breaks this down into 3 distinct categories
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of prayer that the student must learn to utilize.
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Breakdown the mechanics of those three prayers for us because
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this is where the theology meets the actual hospital bed.
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Sure. How does a student know which
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type of prayer to use in a given situation?
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The first category is compassion prayers.
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The mentor teaches the student to offer these prayers for
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patients who were in the acute, immediate throes of physical
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pain or sudden loss. When a mother is weeping over a
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severely injured child, that is not the moment for a theological
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lecture. No, that is the moment to cry
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out to God for immediate physical mercy and grace.
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The second category progresses to comfort prayers.
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These are offered for patients facing the terror of a grim
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diagnosis or imminent death. The student learns to pray that
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the patient will find peace in the sovereign arms of a God who
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has defeated death. Finally, the student learns to
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pray conviction prayers. These are reserved for patients
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who are entirely focused on having their physical bodies
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healed while completely neglecting the eternal state of
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their souls. The student prays that the
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physical illness will awaken the patient to their desperate need
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for repentance and salvation. That progression requires so
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much wisdom. When a disciple begins to take
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responsibility for both the clinical care and this level of
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intense spiritual intercession, they start to see genuine,
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undeniable fruit. And that fruit leads directly
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into the third principle outlined in the text, which is
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reward and multiplication. The fully trained disciple
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eventually becomes like the master.
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They start to experience the grace of God first hand in the
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trenches of their daily work. They see a sick child recover
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against all medical odds, and they recognize God's hand in it.
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They witness a terrified father learn to rest in the sovereign
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Providence of God, trusting that the Lord is good even in the
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darkest hospital room. They see a rebel, confronted by
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the physical consequences of their sin, genuinely repent and
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turn to Christ. When the student experiences
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this kind of spiritual harvest, the entire relationship with the
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mentor shifts. It moves from a teacher student
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dynamic to a peer-to-peer brotherhood.
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This mirrors what Jesus described in John 15.15 when he
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told his disciples he no longer called them servants but
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friends, because he had made known to them everything he
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heard from the Father. Healthcare missions is perfectly
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suited for this kind of rapid organic multiplication because
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of the mechanics of the medical profession itself.
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Medical professionals enjoy a remarkably high degree of
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societal trust. They are invited into the most
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vulnerable moments of people's lives.
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Furthermore, because obtaining medical licenses require such a
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massive investment of time and resources, these professionals
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typically stay in the same locations to earn their living.
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That logistical detail is huge. If you train a local nurse or a
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local physician, they are not leaving.
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They are rooted in that community.
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This allows the ministry to replicate organically within the
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culture. It completely bypasses the
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painfully slow process of a new foreign missionary having to
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spend years learning a new language, understanding the
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culture and building trust from scratch.
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The local professional already has the language, the culture
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and the trust. I also want to connect this to
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the Reformed view of vocation. In Reformed theology, medical
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work is not a secular, worldly job that a Christian slaps a
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thin veneer of evangelism over. Treating a disease is a
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legitimate God ordained vocation.
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It is a holy calling used directly by God to build His
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church. The work of setting a bone or
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prescribing medicine honors God in and of itself because it
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pushes back against the curse of the fall.
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The work itself is honorable, but let's be realistic, We live
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in a fallen world, and human depravity guarantees that there
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will be massive obstacles to this work.
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Oh, absolutely. What threatens this biblical
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model? If the methodology is so
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brilliant, why isn't every medical mission thriving?
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The source material outlines 3 major pitfalls that constantly
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threaten to derail healthcare missions.
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Let's look at the first one, which is a shallow integration
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of witness and work. We have to understand the
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mechanics of how doctors are trained today.
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Secular medical training actively opposes mixing faith
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and clinical practice. A Christian physician might
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spend over a decade in rigorous medical school and residency,
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and during that entire time, they might never once be
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encouraged or even allowed to pray with a patient.
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They are conditioned to be purely materialistic in their
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approach to the human body. This secular conditioning
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creates a highly dangerous scenario on the mission field.
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You can have a brilliant, highly skilled surgeon arrive in a
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foreign country, but they remain completely unequipped to
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diagnose a spiritual need. They have been trained to see
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the patient just as a collection of failing organs rather than an
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eternal soul carrying the image of God.
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They might fix a hernia perfectly, but completely ignore
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the patient's spiritual state. The second pitfall, and perhaps
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the most insidious, is neglecting the local church.
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This is often described as the trap of following the funding.
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I want to dive into that because the economics of mission work
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can be incredibly deceptive. How does funding pull a
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missionary away from the local church?
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It happens because wealthy donors and secular aid
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organizations are usually very eager to fund tangible physical
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projects. They will eagerly write massive
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checks to build a state-of-the-art pediatric
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operating room or a brand new maternity ward with their name
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on it. But those same donors have 0
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interest in funding the theological training of local
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church leadership. If a missionary is not vigilant,
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the hospital will stand in absolute grandeur, completely
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funded and sparkling, while the local church a mile down the
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road is left in total disrepair, lacking trained pastors and
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resources. We have to anchor ourselves to
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Matthew 16.18. Christ promised to build his
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church. He never promised to build a
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hospital. The local body of believers must
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remain the absolute center of any mission work, or the mission
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has failed. Which brings up a really
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difficult practical question for you, the listener, to consider.
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Imagine you are a missionary Dr. How do you balance the
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immediate, literal bleeding of a patient right in front of you
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with the invisible, eternal needs of their soul?
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That is a daily struggle for these workers.
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How do you do that without being completely crushed by the sheer
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volume of need? If your waiting room has 200
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sick people in it every single morning, how do you stop to
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disciple a Co worker or share the gospel with a patient?
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The demands of the physical body scream so loudly.
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The source material points us back to the example of Jesus in
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Mark chapter 1. To answer this, Christ was
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surrounded by massive crowds demanding physical healing, yet
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he purposefully withdrew to desolate places to seek
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spiritual solitude and pray. He did not heal every single
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person in Israel. He prioritized the mission of
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the Gospel over the unending demand for physical relief.
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That prioritization leads directly to the third pitfall,
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misunderstanding the nature of poverty and human suffering.
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It is very easy for compassionate people to treat
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physical relief work as the final, ultimate expression of
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the gospel, rather than viewing it as a bridge to declaring
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truth. If a missionary misdiagnoses the
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root cause of human suffering, which, as we establish from
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Genesis, is sin, they will provide the wrong treatment
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plan. Providing clean water, malaria
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Nets and antibiotics is a good biblical mandate.
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We should do those things. But if the work stops there, it
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falls drastically short of the Great Commission.
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We are just making people healthier on their way to
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eternal separation from God. To see how believers avoid these
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massive pitfalls and successfully blend physical and
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spiritual care in the real world, the source material
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provides 2 incredibly vivid case studies from the field.
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Let's. Look at the first case study.
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This is the story of Ava Flores, who works as an urban medical
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consultant in an unnamed Muslim majority city.
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Ava and her husband were initially drawn to big cities
23:01
and unreached people groups after reading the works of John
23:04
Piper. Ava is a highly trained US
23:07
licensed physician associate. She had the skills, she had the
23:10
desire. But when she arrived in her host
23:13
country, she hit a massive legal wall.
23:16
She could not legally practice medicine there as a foreigner.
23:20
The government simply did not allow it.
23:22
Think about the emotional and psychological toll of that
23:25
situation. Ava had to undergo a severe
23:28
humbling process. She had a strip away her pride
23:31
in her identity as a medical professional.
23:33
She was living in a neighborhood surrounded by people suffering
23:36
from preventable diseases. She was attending funerals
23:38
constantly, yet feeling legally paralyzed to intervene with the
23:42
medical skills she spent years acquiring.
23:45
However, her frustration led to a brilliant, innovative
23:48
solution. She realized she could not work
23:51
in a traditional hospital setting, so she analyzed the
23:54
laws and started a medical consultancy business.
23:57
Explain the mechanics of this consultancy because it is not
24:00
just a fake front for a church, it is a legitimate operation
24:04
that solves a real problem. How does a consultancy function
24:07
in an urban center where you cannot prescribe medicine?
24:10
A consultancy operates in the preventative and educational
24:12
space. Ava began offering simple home
24:15
visits to give medical advice. She taught CPR training and
24:19
first aid courses to locals. This is a crucial service in any
24:23
city. Furthermore, running a
24:24
legitimate business allowed her to hire three national believers
24:28
as employees. This is a massive strategic
24:31
move. Jobs in major urban centers in
24:33
the developing world are often highly transient.
24:36
People move constantly to find work.
24:38
By providing a stable income through her business, Ava was
24:42
able to keep these national believers rooted in the city,
24:45
heavily plugged into their local church ministry rather than
24:48
watching them relocate to another province to find a
24:50
paycheck. The climax of her story is just
24:53
incredible. Through this consultancy, Ava's
24:55
husband met some street food sellers near their home.
24:58
In the course of conversation, they learned that one of the
25:01
men's wives had advanced stage cancer.
25:03
Ava and her Co worker, an Indonesian nurse, were welcomed
25:07
into the home to provide care. They provided crucial end of
25:10
life palliative care to this Muslim mother of four.
25:13
They managed her physical pain, they washed her, and they cared
25:16
for her dignity, but they also share the gospel and prayed with
25:19
her extensively before she passed away.
25:22
Ava and her team believed the woman's response to the gospel
25:25
was genuine, but here is the massive twist in the story.
25:29
It was only after the woman passed away that Ava discovered
25:33
who the woman's family was. The woman's father-in-law was
25:35
the newly elected leader of their entire district.
25:38
The impact of their physical care on that community leader
25:41
was undeniable. This devout Muslim district
25:44
leader was so moved by the tangible love, dignity and
25:49
medical service they provided to his dying daughter-in-law that
25:52
he completely opened up the community to their presence.
25:55
He saw that their faith produced genuine sacrificial love.
25:59
When Ava's church plant was ready to begin gathering
26:01
publicly, it was this exact district leader who provided the
26:05
required legal documentation and signatures to make their church
26:08
official. If we analyze the mechanics of
26:11
this strategy, a legitimate medical business acts as an
26:14
invisible gateway into otherwise impenetrable homes.
26:17
A known medical consultant visiting a sick neighbor to
26:20
check vitals or offer palliative care draws 0 suspicion from the
26:24
community. It completely bypasses the
26:26
cultural and legal backlash that a strictly religious visit from
26:30
a foreign missionary would instantly trigger.
26:33
It is a perfect integration of vocational skill and God
26:36
sovereign placement. Eva used the exact tools she had
26:40
available within the strict legal boundaries of her host
26:43
country, and God used that specific consultancy to open the
26:47
doors for a local church. Now, from an urban center in an
26:51
unnamed Muslim majority city, we move across the globe to a rural
26:56
hospital ward in Africa for our second case study.
26:59
This story, provided by Carlin Wendler, proves that these
27:02
principles of discipleship hold true across vastly different
27:05
cultures in clinical settings. This case involves a senior
27:08
medical student named Arlene and a 27 year old patient named
27:12
Fantine who was admitted to a hospital in Burundi.
27:15
We need to understand the severe context of Fantine's situation.
27:19
Fantine was a single mother and she was actively dying of AIDS.
27:22
She'd reached at a point of absolute despair.
27:24
She had abandoned her five year old son, leaving him with
27:27
relatives, and she had completely stopped taking the
27:29
antiretroviral medications that were keeping the HIV virus in
27:32
check. She had essentially given up on
27:34
life. During morning rounds, the
27:36
medical team stood at Fantine's bed.
27:39
The attending professor holding the clipboard asked the medical
27:42
students for a treatment plan based on Fantine's extensive
27:45
problem list. This list included opportunistic
27:48
infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and severe clinical
27:51
depression. Picture that scene.
27:54
You have a professor evaluating students in front of a dying
27:57
patient. The professor is focusing
27:59
entirely on the physiological origins of her condition,
28:02
looking for a purely materialistic pharmaceutical
28:05
answer. But Arlene, the senior medical
28:08
student, correctly diagnosed the absolute root of the issue.
28:12
She looked at the chart, looked at the patient and told the
28:14
medical team her main problem is her sin and separation from God.
28:18
When the professor, likely shocked by this response, asked
28:21
what the prescribed treatment should be, Arlene replied she
28:24
needs to hear and believe the gospel.
28:27
That is an incredibly bold statement to make in a clinical,
28:30
academic setting. It demonstrates that Arlene had
28:33
successfully internalized the theological bedrock we discussed
28:36
earlier. She saw the check engine light
28:39
of the physical disease and identified the broken engine of
28:41
the soul. The professor, to his credit,
28:44
allowed this. He actually offered to help
28:47
Arlene present the gospel to Fun team.
28:50
Wow, that is a big deal. But Arlene politely declined his
28:53
help. Right.
28:54
Yes. Noting that her fluency in the
28:56
local language of Kirundi was better than his, Arlene pulled
29:00
up a chair, sat down, and spent an hour sharing the good news of
29:04
Christ's atoning work with Fantine in her native tongue.
29:08
Fantine responded in faith. She believed the gospel, and the
29:11
source material notes that the immediate visible piece that I
29:14
washed over her was so striking that it impacted the rest of the
29:18
room. A 33 year old woman in the
29:19
neighboring bed who is dying of stomach cancer watched this
29:23
entire interaction. She saw the radical change in
29:25
Fantine's demeanor and asked to hear the same message.
29:28
Both women were saved that afternoon in that hospital ward.
29:32
The results of that single afternoon were comprehensive and
29:34
holistic. The woman with stomach cancer
29:36
was discharged the next day on palliative care, going home to
29:40
spend her final days with her family, enveloped in the peace
29:43
of Christ. Fantine's entire trajectory
29:46
change. Her soul was healed, which
29:48
motivated her to address her physical reality.
29:51
She resumed her antiretroviral medications.
29:54
She began caring for her son again, pulling him back into her
29:57
life. She plugged into a local church.
30:00
And in a beautiful display of the fruit of the Spirit, when
30:03
the professor who had LED those morning rounds later fell ill
30:06
himself, Fantine actually traveled back to the hospital
30:10
specifically to check on him. Arlene, the medical student, had
30:13
successfully treated the physical reality of AIDS, but
30:16
she addressed the curse of the fall first.
30:19
She recognized that Fantine's physical decay and her despair
30:22
were think tums of a much deeper separation from her creator.
30:25
This brings us right back to the theology we established at the
30:28
very beginning of this deep dive.
30:30
Arlene did not ignore the physical reality of the virus.
30:33
She did not tell Fantine just to pray and ignore the medicine.
30:37
She used her medical training to its fullest extent.
30:40
But she understood that true holistic healing requires
30:44
addressing the spiritual rot at the core of the human condition.
30:47
The overarching vision of healthcare missions is
30:50
beautifully summarized in the source material.
30:53
The goal is the gospel for every person, a church for every
30:56
believer, a pastor for every church, and training for every
31:01
pastor. Medical missions is not just
31:03
about handing out pills to reduce suffering.
31:05
It is an incredibly strategic link in that chain of church
31:09
planting and leadership development.
31:11
When you look at the breadth of what we have discussed today,
31:14
from the theological bedrock of God's Providence and total
31:17
depravity, to the historical examples of Calvin in Geneva and
31:21
Carrie in India, right down to the modern strategies of taking
31:25
a spiritual history and discipline Co workers, a massive
31:29
truth emerges. Healthcare missions is a choice
31:31
instrument of grace. It leverages the reality of
31:34
human physical suffering to forcefully introduce the reality
31:37
of spiritual redemption. It takes the darkest moments of
31:39
the human experience, disease, fear and death, and uses them as
31:43
the exact context to display the light of the Gospel.
31:46
It really is an incredible framework for viewing our work.
31:48
So what does this all mean for you, the listener?
31:51
I want to leave you with a provocative thought to Mull over
31:54
as we close. If a medical clinic in rural
31:56
Burundi or a small CPR consultant in a restricted urban
31:59
city can be leveraged so intentionally for the Great
32:02
Commission, what does that mean for your specific vocation?
32:07
We do not all hold medical degrees, but how might your
32:10
daily desk job, your classroom, or your specific trade be the
32:14
context God has sovereignly ordained for life on life
32:17
discipleship today? If God can use the crinkly paper
32:20
of a doctor's examination table to advance His Kingdom, He can
32:24
certainly use the tools of your daily labor to do the exact same
32:27
thing. Thank you for joining us for
32:29
this deep dive on reformed thinking.