Podcast

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.

In 2001, the United Nations formulated eight goals intended, by 2015, to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease that affect billions of people. These goals touch on a web of interwoven factors that contribute to the needlessly desperate circumstances in which many in the world live. As we approach 2015, how are we doing? Why does this matter to medical missions? What might God be calling us to do? The approach of this session will be: Review the 8 goals and provide a concise update on progress for each; Engage conversation around the questions, “Are these goals relevant to us as Christians in medical/health missions?” How might pursuing these goals help answer the prayer, “…thy will be done on earth as in heaven…”?; Highlight the three health-specific goals and invite participants to share examples of ways their efforts touch on these goals; Illustrate the inseparable relationship the three health-specific goals have with the other five goals; Involve participants in listing specific ways to work on these goals over the coming year and invite participants to make those actions part of their covenant with God; Stimulate thinking and planning for beyond-2015.

The crucial 1,000 days from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until her child’s 2nd birthday offer a unique window of opportunity to shape healthier and more prosperous futures. The right nutrition during this 1,000 day window can have an enormous impact on a child’s ability to grow, to learn, and rise out of poverty. It can also have a profound effect on the long-term health, stability, and development of entire communities and nations. Today, under-nutrition is still a leading cause of death of young children throughout the world. For infants and children under the age of two, the consequences of under-nutrition are particularly severe, often irreversible, and reach far into the future.

This breakout will look at these realities through the lens of Christian health ministries by:

Tracing the correlation between nutrition during the 1000 Days to lifelong health, the ability of children to thrive, learn and become fully contributing adults.
Reviewing the place of nutrition and feeding and care of children in the ministry of Jesus, and the ministries of those who follow in his footsteps
Engaging participants in identifying a web of factors that promote and or resist adequate nutrition for children under two. Exploring ways in which participants’ health-care missions can contribute to improved nutrition in the communities and regions in which they serve. Presenting and then collectively refining a list of best practices and resources for improving child nutrition among vulnerable populations

No single factor enhances the likelihood of sustained improvement in the health of a person, family or community more than empowerment: affirming and engaging the dignity, strengths, experience, vision, and resources of those we are called to serve. This session will review the practical as well as biblical and theological reasons that empowerment is an essential ingredient in every Christian health ministry. It will offer practical guidelines for making our health ministries more empowering.
We will approach the session by:
• What does empowerment mean and why is it important from a Christian perspective?
• Together trace the relationship of empowerment to improving health
• Drawing from research on empowerment in which the presenter participated along with faculty from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and other ministry colleagues, provide an overview of ways that NGOs and faith-based organizations define, operationalize and measure empowerment
• Involve participants in identifying and overcoming obstacles to empowerment in health missions
• Propose and then collectively refine a set of guidelines for planning medical missions that contribute optimally to empowerment; and a parallel set of guidelines for evaluating empowerment outcomes
• Collectively identify resources and best practices in the area of empowerment in health ministries