He Dwelled Among Us

“He dwelled among us”—this was the theme for Urbana 09, the nation’s largest missions conference. Urbana has been held every 3 years since 1946, and the week after Christmas the Hospitals of Hope USA staff traveled to St. Louis for the 22nd triennial conference.

Urbana always provides a lot of food for thought, as well as being a great way to connect with future volunteers. This year’s conference focused on the incarnation and what that means for the way we should conduct missions.

When Christ came to earth, the speakers pointed out, he “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:7). It’s far too easy for us to get caught up in preserving our own dignity when we do missions. We’re happy to perform surgery, but we’d really rather that someone else emptied the bed pans. It’s easy to think we’re being sacrificial when we get to do the glamorous work; it’s far harder to serve in the ins and outs of everyday life.

Another way we can learn from Jesus’ example is to maintain a long-term commitment to the people we serve. Too often, Western missionaries go to a developing country, make promises to help, and then go home, leaving their promises unfulfilled and people disillusioned. Jesus, on the other hand, came and lived with—and died for—the people he came to save; his was no short-term commitment.

This one is a little harder to apply for most of us. Most of us haven’t been called to spend our lives in a foreign country, among strangers. When we get involved in missions, it’s usually short-term. I still think that we can put this principle into practice, though. While we may not spend our lives on the mission field, we can maintain a long-term commitment, even from home.

Our hospital in Bolivia sees many short-term volunteers who come and go, but many continue to be involved with Hospitals of Hope, and, thereby, the community around our hospital, long after their time abroad has ended. We’re committed to making sure that we provide continuous, quality care at our hospital, and we employ a year-round Bolivian staff to do that, even after volunteers have gone home. Although most of us don’t live in Bolivia full-time, we have made a commitment to the community, and we aren’t going anywhere.

Many of the people who attended Urbana are students, and, as we talked to the ones stopping by our booth, we could tell that a lot of them were really thinking hard about how to apply the things they were learning to their lives. Should they go to medical school and become a missionary doctor? Should they avoid all the debt associated with medical school and become a nurse, so that they could go to the mission field sooner? Should they stay at home in the US and support missions financially?

We didn’t have a lot of answers for most of these students; God has a different plan for each of their lives. But there is one thing that they all have in common with all of us—we are being called to serve with humility and commitment.

Container shipment headed to Liberia

Last week, we loaded up and shipped out another container to John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Liberia, West Africa. This container is full of medical equipment that will greatly improve patient care at the hospital-- including 4 x-ray machines (since the hospital currently doesn't have one), surgical instruments, operating room lights, a central suction system, sterilizers and patient monitors, hospital beds, and dental equipment.

We picked just about the coldest day so far this year to load up the container, as you can see from all the layers we're wearing! But we got everything loaded up and shipped out safely, and it's on its way. Mike and Daniel will be headed to Liberia in February to unload the container and install the equipment.

"Christ Therapy": Healing Bodies and Souls

We recently received an update from Nestor Hugo de la Fuente Murillo, our staff pastor / counselor in Bolivia, and I wanted to share some of it with all of you.

Nestor Hugo recently completed a master’s degree in Applied Psychology and Social Intervention, with specialties in geriatric psychology, addictions, sickness, and other areas that will help him to minister more effectively to our patients. He did all of this without using any of his time at the hospital for his studies; instead, he did most of his work on his hour-long commute to and from the hospital, along with some night-long study sessions, “accompanied by Nescafe.”

Nestor Hugo has already begun to see the effects of his study on his ministry. He writes, “With my new degree, I have been able to open an area of “Christ Therapy.” That is to say that my ministry with Hospitals of Hope has improved; my work is wiser, broader, more effective, and much more complete: body, soul, and spirit.”

This is exactly what we want to do at Hospitals of Hope—to show Christ’s love by healing bodies and souls. Please keep Nestor Hugo and the rest of the Hospitals of Hope Bolivia staff in your prayers as they minister to the community around our hospital.

Can We Change the World without God?

“Can we change the world without God?”

That’s the question posed on a recent blog post on urbana.org. To a certain extent, the answer is obvious. After all, even Hitler changed the world. The question of whether we can change the world for the better is trickier.

Communism in the USSR changed the face of the globe dramatically. The Communist leaders had incredible visions of what the world could be like—there would be equality, an end to injustice and poverty. Yet their visions of equality led to oppression, environmental devastation, and mass murder. “Men have forgotten God,” Solzhenitsyn explained. “That’s why all of this has happened.”

Of course, Communism in the USSR is a bit of a straw man. There have been many who have made positive contributions to humanity who have been atheists, agnostics, or followers of other religions. The Urbana blog post cites Einstein, Edison, and Benjamin Franklin as examples. Or how about the many leaders of NGOs providing relief in the developing world who don’t share our faith? Your faith, or lack thereof, makes very little difference to the starving person that you feed.

So what do we, as Christians, have to offer? The Urbana writer offers three unique benefits that Christians have: a real hope, communion with Christ, and the perseverance of faith.

While it’s possible to make many positive changes without these things, they have a transformational power that can’t be found outside of Christ. We have a real and lasting hope—and without that, we (and those we’re trying to help) too easily succumb to despair. Our personal connection with our Maker helps ensure that we don’t fall into all of the traps laid by the wayside—“the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” after all. We know that each individual has incredible value, that we cannot ignore “the least of these.” And our faith sustains us when the going gets tough and helps us to “not grow weary in doing good” (Galations 6:9).

At Hospitals of Hope, our faith is essential to our work—to our attempts to change the world. While we offer medical care to provide for physical needs, we also seek to provide for spiritual needs. We don’t force anyone to share our faith, but we hold out the hope that we have, and we offer it to them freely.

The Urbana writer examines this question much more thoroughly than I do here, so check out the original post. Also, Hospitals of Hope will be attending Urbana ’09 in St. Louis December 27-31 this year, so, if you come, be sure to come by our booth (#1231) and say hello. We would love to see you!

Count your many blessings

With Thanksgiving coming up, now seems like a good time to reflect on all of the ways that we have been blessed. And we have truly been blessed. Here are a few of the things we have to be thankful for. (You’re on the list!)

• Our good and generous God, whose grace is the reason for everything we do here.
• The opportunity to spend every day working to bring hope to those without accessible health care.
• Our local volunteers, who give up their time to come and sort surgical instruments, pack crates, inventory supplies, stuff envelopes, plan events.....
• Our “virtual” volunteers, whose work frees up countless staff hours for other tasks.
• Our international volunteers, who are our hands and feet in the countries we serve.
• Our individual supporters, without whom we couldn’t continue our work.
• Our church supporters, whose prayer and financial support are invaluable.
• Our business supporters, like Wesley Medical Center and Cornerstone Builders, who make events like our concert possible.
• Our staff in Bolivia: Rudy, Nestor, Tomas, Iris, and so many more who work hard to keep our hospital and guesthouse functioning.
• Brianna Brown, our Xelda Ministries administrator, who has left her home here to minister through building relationships in the community around our hospital.
• Our staff in the US: Mike, who works incredibly hard to keep everything running smoothly; Daniel, who’s proved himself to be a jack of all trades; and Leta (me), about whom I won’t say anything, because that would feel a little weird. :)
• Our board members, whose experience in missions, business, medicine, and ministry of various kinds provides valuable direction.
• Our partnership with the Bolivian National Police, with whom we’re saving the lives of traffic accident victims.
• Our partnership with John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia, where we’re blessed to be able to help them rebuild.
• The other ministries we work with in Bolivia, Liberia, and other countries around the world, with whose help we’re able to greatly increase our impact.
• Our newly redesigned website, thanks to Brian White of Trilion Studios.
• Our new inventory system, thanks to David McQuoid of Computers in Ministry.
• All of you!

Volunteers help provide medical relief to Liberia

As many of you know, Hospitals of Hope has been working with John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia for the last two years, in an effort to help this hospital rebuild after the country’s devastating civil war. After this summer’s successful trip and further discussion with the staff at JFK, Hospitals of Hope has begun packing another container of essential medical supplies and equipment that is due to be sent out at the beginning of December.

We’ve had a great group of volunteers helping us out as we get ready to ship this next container. This past weekend, volunteers from Pathways at Central Christian Church came and sorted through surgical instruments, and a couple of surgical techs from Wesley Medical Center have been putting the instruments into packs to be used during surgery. We (and the people of Liberia) are so blessed by all of you who help us in our goal of providing quality, accessible medical care!

If you or your group is interested in helping out, call the Hospitals of Hope office at 316.262.0964, or send an email to leta@hospitalsofhope.org.

The 648,957,200th Richest Person in the World

I'm not exactly wealthy.

Of course, I have enough to eat every day, I can pay my heat and electricity bills, and my car, while a bit beat up, is still functional.

That's not quite enough to get me on the Forbes 400 list, but still, when I visited the Global Rich List, I found that I am the 648,957,200th richest person in the world-- in the top 10.8% of the approximately 7 billion people on this planet.

Just out of curiosity, I retried the experiment with my salary as a grad student, "making just enough to starve on." Even in my first year, when my stipend was considerably below the federal poverty line, I was in the top 14.17%.

I guess that's not too surprising, considering that "At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day" (GlobalIssues.org). The top 20% of people, of whom I've always been a part, are responsible for 76.6% of the world's consumption (GlobalIssues.org).

It's easy for statistics like this to make us feel guilty. Who are we to take up three quarters of the world's resources?

That is a valid question, of course, and I'm certainly trying to be aware of how much I consume and cut down on wastefulness. But I don't think we should feel guilty about the ways we have been blessed. We should be thankful for our blessings-- and we should consider how we can use them to bless others. After all, it is "more blessed to give than to receive." Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

In 1 Timothy 6:8, Paul writes, "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (NIV). I've definitely got plenty of both of those things, but not everyone does. In 3rd world countries, 1 in 3 children lacks adequate shelter, 1 in 5 lacks safe water, and 1 in 7 lacks basic health care (GlobalIssues.org).

We can't do everything, but we also aren't powerless. I think we often underestimate the impact of small sacrifices on our part. For the 80% of people living on less than $10 a day, even $10--the price of a pizza or a trip to the movies--can make a huge difference.

Those are sacrifices I can definitely afford to make. After all, I am the 648,957,200th richest person in the world.