AMEN 2018: Call to Service

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Brian Schwartz

Plenary

Motivation for Service: The Explosive Power of the Gospel

Elvin Adams

The Primary Thing is the Primary Thing

Stephen Wright

All People are Worth the Investment

Dafne Moretta

My Story, His Faithfulness

Tash Ching

Purposed in His Heart

John Bradshaw

The Power of One

Testimonies & Mission Reports

Naren James

Spiritual Entrepreneurship: In Search of Investors

Mark Finley

Loving Service: The Heart of the Early Christian Faith

Lord God, on this Sabbath afternoon, we just praise you for this high time together. We feel that your presence has been here with us, and we pray that as we move into this time of worship, reflection testimony, that your Holy Spirit would subdue our hearts, that you would speak to us and that you encourage us, father to, as we see what you are doing in the lives of your children throughout the world, as we hasten, we do what we can to hasten your coming. Thank you again for this opportunity and these things we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Add the opportunity to go to Philippines in June a couple months ago to inaugurate their very first annual Amen. Conference over there. And some of you saw, most of you probably saw the video we had this morning and it was, yeah, I didn't think I was gonna be in that one. I asked Shane to cut me out, but there I was. So this second video is an additional in information slot that we just wanted to share with you. And then immediately after the video, Dr. Elvin Texan is gonna be sharing with us a little bit about Amen. Philippines, it's inception, it's progress, and what to expect in the future. Thank you. You know, in Amen chapter in any part of the world, helps the local physicians to actually work together along with the pastors and, and others, the hospitals that we may have, the institutions that we have, the other health ministries and supporting ministries to be able to work together in unison, to have a tapestry of, of work and the pattern of the beehive where it's not just health ministry, but health ministry plus others in the local conference, in the union, in the division, this is, is a way of actually being able to reach a larger number of people with the good news of the gospel. Where I was first asked to come to speak at Amen Philippines, I was picturing maybe 40 or 50 people from a local group. I never expected they'd be coming from various islands, from the north, from the south, from Malaysia, from Guam, there's even, even somebody from Africa. And so this has been amazing. They have over 200 delegates in attendance. Many speakers from our Amen conferences back in the United States have been speaking here as well as some of their own speakers. And it's been a very powerful, exceptionally good start. For the first annual Amens Philippine conference, I think everything is inspiring to me. The from the devotional to the testimonies, to the breakout sessions, I think all these things, they teach me something to be a more effective doctor for God. And this conference, it changed my point of view that we are here on this earth, we are just instruments to make a difference to people's life. We're not just here to heal the sick, but to bring them close to Jesus. And my point of view now is that all of the patients are important. We shouldn't treat them like we should treat them equally. And the most important thing that we should do is to bring them to Jesus. Before we were more focused on the physical health. So this summer on we hope to incorporate the spiritual and health together in our practice. So it's really been a blessing to be able to attend the Amen Conference. I believe that we are leaving the last days and to keep this message in to within our own selves is a great mistake. We need to share it because you know, people are dying because of ignorance. As medical professionals, we should not only be well versed with our field, I mean in our specialty or how to treat diseases, but more so how to prepare for the coming of the Lord. In this meeting, the people exceeded energy. They're excited about what they're doing. Just the mere fact that more people attended than was anticipated would attend. And it's not because they have this great marketing machine, right, that got everybody here. It's that people who were coming were excited and they told other people, you ought to come to this. So the, the the, the tone of people here was one of, of interest of, of a desire to work together. I would assume that some of them were curious right as to whether this would actually take off and they put their money where their mouth was and, and they came to see, to hear, to experience. And from what I hear already, they don't seem to be disappointed at all. I would like to say Abuja from the Philippines, and we are so thankful for the opportunity we had when we attended Amen there and now we are also having that Amen Conference here and we have been blessed by the people from Amen usa. And we hope that you will also pray for us here, that we will be able to do the medical missionary work and how you inspire others too, that we will be able to do that also so that our work here in the Philippines will be united and we can even be a stronger medical arm. I want all medical professionals to also join the Amen Convention. Wherever these are help, they will really help you, not only benefit you, but also benefit others who will be under your care. Happy Sabbath. Amen. Brethren, I consider my part this afternoon as a divine appointment. I am grateful to God for this opportunity to share what he has done for the medical community in the Philippines. Can I have, can I offer a short prayer of God my father? Please speak through me and stand beside me as I share to my brethren here how you, what you have done to Amen Philippines. In Jesus name I pray, amen. I feel an inadequate for this task, but although I have the script here, but I'm open to for the Holy Spirit to impress me, what to say. It all started from a burden, a deep burden on how the medical profession is being conducted in our country, whether in our very own Adventist, hospitals or individual practices. After finishing our residency training, me and my wife were called to work as staff physicians in one of our Adventist hospitals. We have observed how, how our sanitariums have evolved from being missionary institutions to becoming business-like in nature. We do understand that for an institution to be sustainable, it must have profits or return of investments, but we felt that the focus is more on business rather than ministry. We cannot even cater for charity or poor patients and we lack intentional programs for the poor. Wherever poor patients come to the ER and cannot secure money for down payments, we transfer them to government hospitals or less equipped facility for treatment. Another burden is our spiritual condition. As practitioners, since Philippines for a very long time, do not have s d a medical or dental schools. Most of us who are practicing now are products of secular or private state universities. We have observed transformation from being active church leaders and members before entering medical school to becoming passive members and even not attending church anymore after medical school. Compromising our faith during our residency training and in our practice, there have been attempts to organize our Adventist medical and dental professionals, but to avail doctors were either passive resistant or suspicious. Sometime in 2015, a friend introduced to me, to my wife averse. We have not heard about this website before, which provides Bible-based and Christ-centered media globally. We were especially encouraged by sermons from A S I G Y C and later sermons from Amen conferences. A presentation by Pastor Mark Finley to medical students made an impact on us. I began to search the website, amen sda.org, going through the organization's mission, vision, and object objectives. We were so excited and blessed to know that an organization like this has been existing already. It brought joy to our hearts knowing that God has a people in North America who are passionate about medical missionary work reminds us of what God told Elijah. Yet I have left 7,000 in Israel. All the niece, which have not bowed <unk> and every mouth, which has not kissed him. This triggered a series of emails with Rebecca Barnhurst. Praise the Lord for her patience, dedication, and love for ministry. Five of us physicians from the Philippines were able to attend the 2016 Amen right here in Indian wells, followed by four delegates in the 2017 Amen in Sonesta. Five of five of us are here today. May I request our, my friends from the Philippines to stand up for the three there. Thank you. These are officers and part of the organizing committee of Amen Philippines. We were so inspired and blessed to network with our brethren here in the us. We were able to discuss with Dr. Todd Guthrie about our desire of establishing Amen chapter in the Philippines. He gave us his blessing and support, which even inspired us to move ahead. In April of 2017. An Amon chapter was established in Central Philippines, but it was not until May of the same year during a health summit in Bali, Indonesia sponsored by our division that Amon Philippines was established on a national level. It was providential that Dr. Zino, Marcel was the main speaker. During the summit, we gathered a few doctors who were present in the summit around 13 or 14 of us, and scheduled a working lunch since it was not part of the program, it was an informal meeting and we introduced Amen to them. Its mission, vision, and objectives. We answered their queries and solicited their ideas. Later, a decision has to be made whether to organize right away or to go back to our respective areas and form Amen chapters. First. Some concerns identified were funding the the SEC registration, et cetera. We did not realize Dr. Zno was across our table eating and attentively listening to our discussions. It was the Holy Spirit to inspired him to stand and speak up. He introduced himself that he's part of the Amen Board and I could not forget what he said. Do not let formalities or red tapes prevent you from organizing the group. Now go ahead. You are on the right track. Immediately we voted for the Philippine Amen officers and advisors. That meeting in Bali was followed by two big Amen gatherings, one in the South Philippines in September with Dr. Mark Sandoval as the main speaker and the second one in Manila in November, 2017. This regional conferences were the pollute to the National Amen Convention, which happened last June eight to 10 20 18. The one, the one, the video that was projected future plans and goals were identified and put in place. Preparations to the Amen Convention was faith building. Since Philippines is divided into three big islands, it was a challenge for us to convene, to gather the officers. So we created a group chat on Messenger where we did our discussions and planning. We had United Prayer every 10 o'clock in the morning to post and pray wherever we are specifically for Amen destinies to the church. Chapter 3 4 29 4 4 2 8 4 29 says, our savior follows his lessons of instruction with a promise that if two or three should be united in asking anything of God, it should be given them. Christ here shows that there must be a union with others even in our desires for a given object. We have no, we have nothing to start with. No money. Donations were received from doctors from our home division union and conferences from our hospitals and from our friends abroad. We were granted 25 CME units by the Professional Regulations Commission and the hotel agreed to serve vegetarian meals. This is their first time to do it and they asked us for assistance. The events manager later commented, are you that C with your health? We have catered several Adventist functions already, but this is the first time you requested for full vegetarian meals. Well, we just copied what you're doing here. We were blessed with seven outstanding speakers, six from Amen, U s A, Dr. Brian and Lindy, Dr. Carlos, Dr. Liz Chung, Dr. Jan Chung, and Dr. Zino who offered their precious time, energy, efforts and money and even brought Shane to Amen Philippines. We have seen and felt the hand of God working and moving in the hearts of his FRA children who are willing to do and continue the work, which Christ himself has started that of healing, teaching and preaching. Isn't it a wonderful privilege and an honor, my brethren, thank you so much for your love, support, and prayers for your brethren in the Philippines. We will do the same for you. Thank you. You never know what God has in store and what seeds are being planted at any given moment. I want to go home. What about you? That's what I keep saying. I feel like we do all these conferences and things for one reason and that reason is so that we can be, we could find the keys to actually release the Holy Spirit down and, and add to this and accelerate this process so we can go home. Would you stand with me as we close out this program and we can. I'll also wanna point you to a couple additional mission opportunities. One in Chad, where James Appelle and his wi, they're looking for some providers. Short time, long term. Short term. Long term, any term. Same thing at the Malawi Adventist Health Center. There's an email contact information there. If you can give six months, three months, two years, 10 years, these are locations, centers of influence that are very, that are needing help right now. So if you're a provider, please contact these individuals as well as I don't want to forget our mission outpost in Israel. And of course don't forget and, and prayer and support for Amen Philippines. Let's pray. Father God, we come to you at the end of this presentation. We're happy to see that you are doing things around the world, but we wanna see more. We want to be a part of more of, of experiencing the Holy Spirit in our lives, of seeing souls come to the foot of the cross, of seeing just the latter rain poured out over all of us. Father, we want to be a part of that work. We want to co-labor with heaven even more than what we've been doing. I ask a blessing over everyone at this conference. Father, please come soon. Allow us to be that people that see you come in glory. Thank you again for the hope you've put in our hearts, and thank you for allowing us to be part of this plan of salvation. We thank you. We ask a blessing over this food as well and a special blessing over the missionaries throughout the world who are doing your work so faithfully, these things I pray in Jesus' name, amen. 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Other Teachings in Series

Motivation for Service: The Explosive Power of the Gospel

The Primary Thing is the Primary Thing

All People are Worth the Investment

My Story, His Faithfulness

Purposed in His Heart

The Power of One

Testimonies & Mission Reports

Spiritual Entrepreneurship: In Search of Investors

Loving Service: The Heart of the Early Christian Faith

Sound Doctrine