AMEN 2014: Joined Together

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Dental Track

Dosung Kim

From Testimony to Missionary, From Missionary to Emissary

From Testimony to Missionary, from Missionary to Emissary.

And we'll talk more about the significance of that title.

I run a, for those of you who do not know me, I started a, my family and I moved to Bolivia 5 years ago.

And we started a medical missionary training school and a lifestyle center where there was nothing there.

And So God led us there to start the school.

And we thought it was going to be something small, just our family with 3 or 4 or 5 students and 1 or 2 patients.

And God calls me to go there to Bolivia to start this ministry.

And for 3 months I struggled with that because we were doing very well in Montana, living a quiet country life, ministering to my patients, praying after 1 of the Amen conferences.

I went back, we started praying with our patients, every single 1 of them, and it just transformed our practice.

It took a little bit of encouraging myself because if you have never done something like that before, you're committing to something to your staff and to your patients, and to pray for them and with them.

But after we started, I realized, wow, this is what it's all about.

It was no longer so much about teeth and getting dentistry done, but it was about meeting the needs of the patients.

And their need was actually, I found out very quickly when I started to do this, their need, the greater need many times was not their dental need.

And so I began to pray with them and that led to many times discussion with our patients about their family, about their work.

And many times, after an hour or hour and a half sometimes, misses patients.

And it looks like my next patient is waiting.

And they would just tell me these things and it was just such a fulfilling ministry I had in my practice.

And my staff and I, we were all, I brought the whole staff, my very first Amen Conference in San Diego.

And so when we went back, we had meetings.

And we decided to have a meeting every morning and go through our schedule of every patient that was going to be coming that day and we were going to pray for everyone in the morning during our worship time.

And when the patient would come in, They would sit and I got rid of all the magazines, the worldly magazines, and I only put in there things like Steps of Christ.

It's amazing how many people pick up that book.

And something about prophecy by Mark Finley, a hardback, and they would ask me where can I buy this?

And sometimes we sell them, sometimes we lend them.

We don't want to give it to them because they may not value it.

Make sure you read it and then bring it right back because we want to save it for the next person that might want to read it.

And so they would take it and read the books.

And then sometimes we were ready for the patient, but because they were reading the books, I would wait.

I would just let them, let God speak to them through the books.

And so even though I was ready, we were all ready to go, we would just let them read the books.

And then we would when it looks like they're putting it down or losing interest, then we would see the patient, seat them and pray with them.

1 time, this person, I asked him, is there something specific I can pray for you?

He said, yeah, pray that I don't have to pay the bill today.

But that was the only time that anybody said anything like that.

The rest of the people all the time, they just appreciated the prayer so much.

And they really, really this time was a bonding time for us.

Well, 1 time the same guy, he said, no, I don't, the first time I said this to him, and then he got wiser.

He was at home thinking about what he was going to ask for the next time.

So the first time I asked him if I can pray with him, he said, oh, I don't believe in God.

And I was a Christian, and I don't believe in that.

He said, yeah, but I need the prayer, because I'm taking care of you.

So I need God to help me to make sure I take care of you properly.

Oh, in that case, yeah, go ahead and pray for me.

And then the next time is when he asked for the bill.

And so that began to transform our practice into a dental practice, but actually it was a ministry.

And it was so fun because my staff, 2 young ladies, I had trained them when they were young, 17, trained them how to make crowns.

My assistant would greet them and start talking with them, kind of prepare them, find out what's going on in their lives.

And then she would come back in the back office and tell me what's going on and tell me what kind of things she might need, that person may need, he or she may need.

And then I would go in and either confirm what she said or talk more deeply about spiritual things.

And I was giving Bible studies to our patients.

I was giving, 1 year I asked God, please give me 3 Bible studies this year.

And I just, 1 day I asked my patient, I don't know why I asked her this because I had never asked a patient this before.

I just, out of the blue, I had this thought, ask her if she wants Bible studies.

Because the problem was she said yes and now I didn't know how to give Bible studies.

And so I said, okay, next week we'll meet at your house.

Steve Chang

How to Overcome the Greatest Disease to Inflict Man

Dear Heavenly Father, you know us so well.

Every breath, every cell that we have is because you gave it to us.

We want to give you all the glory and honor.

May our hearts and minds be open to your calling, to know what is right and wrong.

May we be in your word and walk with you all the days of our lives.

Unlike Do, who was 3K, I was actually probably 1K because I was raised in a Buddhist home and we moved from Korea when I was about 9 years old.

And there was not a discussion about if you're going to go or not.

You know, it's like, unlike here in the United States, we have a conference about everything with a democratic process.

So it came and When I was in Korea, someone invited me to church at 1 time, like 1 or 2 weekends.

And when I heard there was a God, and God's in heaven and He's watching over you and He's going to want to save you, He's going to come back someday.

I didn't know about Bible or anything else.

And I actually prayed to him several times.

And he answered several awesome prayers and I knew he was there.

But when I made it to the United States, I lived in New York and came back to California, I saw a church across the street and went to that church for a long time until as I got older and started studying their doctrine it was kind of out there in terms of what the rest of the churches were teaching about eternal hell, the judgment, the torment, the secret rapture, speaking in tongues.

And so I, in high school, decided to leave because I didn't believe A loving God would allow that to happen.

So I remember 1 night I prayed and I said, Lord, if you exist, come search for me because I'm not going to church anymore.

So I went off to college and fortunately God had a different plan for me.

I ended up at PUC not because of the religion but because I wanted to go to a smaller school and I was baptized the last Sabbath before I left and I realized God is your friend.

I went up to Loma Linda and married my beautiful wife, Nancy.

And I've been able to go on several mission trips and been blessed by it.

When I was in dental school, I wanted to be a missionary, and I sought for a mission spot overseas after I was done.

And when I did, there was only 1 spot left.

Unfortunately, a classmate took over and I wasn't able to go overseas, which I think was fine.

I went into private practice back in my hometown in Monterey.

But while I was there, I started doing short-term missions overseas, several weeks out of the year.

And as it grew and grew, now I do maybe 6 to 8 times a year overseas.

But 1 of the places that I get to go to is Amazon, work with Maranatha, or go with some evangelist, go to Mongolia, Egypt.

I've been to all 7 continents of the world, fortunately, by God's grace, and been to the islands, several wonderful, you meet such nice people, you know?

And I've also been director of the Holland America Cruise Line as an officer and we place dentists on the ships and been to amazing places.

If you didn't know, those are my kids too.

And I've worked with many different ministries like ASAP and Army Bible Camp if you've ever heard of them.

And I've been able to see some wonderful sites.

But today I'm going to talk to you about some of the dental things that we see overseas as well as home.

And if things are not answered, please ask me at the end of the program.

Last weekend we had the San Diego clinic.

We had 30 chairs, 40 dental students, 15 dentists coming to help the community.

And the people who came were not just local Californians.

They were from actually all over the world.

I would love to show you so many more pictures, but there were people from Ethiopia, Ghana, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Europe, many, many Middle East countries.

So there's a lot of opportunity everywhere, not just overseas but even at home.

And here's some of the people here from Mexico even.

And she's not an Adventist but she wanted to help.

So she came to Bible study this week, and she's now going to church next weekend.

She had gone to church like myself, and she had given up, and now she's found God again.

Your testimony will be someone else's inspiration.

And here's some of the people who are there.

And this will be our next speaker right there, Carlos, if you haven't seen him yet.

What they did was they took a radius of 2 miles around the campus and said, let's see what we could do for the people around us.

Ellen White mentioned the blueberry method.

They didn't do any medical work initially.

But after a while, they're like, why are you guys doing this?

And they said, because we want to love our neighbor.

And when we did the clinic, they were able to invite them.

And now they have 7, 8 people coming to the church on a frequent basis now.

So let me ask you, what is the greatest disease that afflicts mankind?

I try to lead you into this, but I'm not going to do that.

The greatest disease, you know, we've heard of itis, of glossitis, meningitis, you know, all those different things.

Carlos Moretta

The Unique Challenges of Sharing Christ in the Dental Office

I graduated from Loma Linda University School of Dentistry in 2001.

Before then I was a dental hygienist for about 5 years.

Kind of ended up in that profession by accident.

Well, by accident, I believe the Lord somehow steered me in that direction.

Was very, very committed to becoming a specialist of some sort.

My heart was in oral surgery, but I just didn't feel like I had the grades.

And I felt like the Lord was really putting it on my heart to pursue that.

And I resisted because it would be 4 more years.

It's like another presidency or something.

And I said I just don't have the energy Lord so I went with plan B and I had a pretty good experience with children so I applied to pediatric dentistry much to the dismay of my mentor in oral surgery.

And 2 months, I got accepted into a program.

I'll just say it was within the United States.

And I came back to Loma Linda with my tail between my legs because it's the only state that I had a license in.

So everyone was like, hey, I thought you were going to go do Peds, and I was like, well, I don't like kids.

Well, I loved kids in Loma Linda in my experience there, but it didn't work out.

So I decided to just humbly start to work.

And A couple years later, the Department of Oral Surgery called me up, asked me, because they had not matched a resident with what I considered doing an internship.

In other words, I would be another body, a warm body.

They would pay me like 20, 000 for the entire year.

And I applied and didn't get in the first time.

And so I applied again, and I got in the second time.

Got in the second time, by the grace of God.

So I finished Oral and maxillofacial surgery residency in 2009 by the grace of God and close that chapter of my life never to look back at it It was miserable but I am so I told the Lord Lord if You give me this specialty.

And I believe, I really do believe that God gives you things, and he keeps up his end of the bargain, but you have to do yours.

And that has, to me, been more fulfilling than a paycheck any day.

So before we get started, I am going to talk to you first of all about the unique challenges of sharing Christ in the dental office.

And as much as I tried in this presentation to make it a scientific, somehow I ended up, it ended up being anecdotal.

I mean, there's just, it's hard to do, it's hard to do a scientific continuing dental education presentation on this topic.

And yet, there are, if this was a medical, if I was speaking to surgeons or primary care doctors, oh, it'd be really easy to be CME.

I'll flesh that out a little bit more during my presentation.

Father in heaven, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to share here at Amen.

I thank you for Amen, where we can come and glean things, ideas that we can use in our lives and our practices to work for you.

And I ask that you would be with me now as I share, and that you would be with the listeners through either audio verse or that are here or present, that we would be able to take with us nuggets today that we could implement in your service.

These things we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, so bear with me too because I just discovered Inspector on Keynote, so I plugged in all these transitions and things like that, trying to make it a Phil Mills presentation, because I think that he is the standard bearer for keynote presentations at AMEN conferences, and I'm always amazed at what he does.

Just want to go over the objectives here.

So today, I just want, hopefully, us to see, I want us to see and understand some of the distinct challenges of sharing their faith in the dental office.

Okay, the attendee of the seminar will understand the value of spiritual assessment and engagement when dealing with fears associated with dental treatment.

And 3, the attendee of the seminar will learn how to engage patients spiritually using creative and appealing techniques.

Initially, I was like, this is gonna be no problem.

But as I got into it, as I was putting my thoughts together, I understand that there's some variables here that you'll never be able to control, no matter what.

You don't know what's coming through the door, and you don't know what you're going to be going through that day.

So it's not as easy as I might present it today, but hopefully this presentation will help to start getting gears turning in your thinking process.

I mean, we could, every 1 of you could probably list something that makes sharing Jesus Christ through your faith or praying in your private practice, in your dental office, that I won't mention here, but time constraints.

There are challenges associated with that, right?

The office is a place of business, right?

I don't wanna infringe on my patient's trust.

But I want to focus on these last 2, me and fear.

Me is an obstacle, and fear is an obstacle.

If we can be completely honest, I'm the biggest obstacle.

So, how many of us find it easy to witness?

It is so, it's so wonderful to minister in other countries because in general, they're just so open and thankful, you know, and so, but here in the US, you know, many of us struggle, first of all, for instance, going door to door.

My wife and I at GYC, we go door to door all the time.

But she's the 1 that knocks on the door and then pushes me forward.

She's from Argentina, and then she claims the language card that she doesn't speak any English.

So nobody enjoys getting the door slammed on them.

And who has, who's, It's so interesting, because on my notes, I hear I have a note about in-gathering.

Like, it's funny, because I remember as a child, I used to go in-gathering all the time, and then I would tell my mom and my dad, can I just save up enough money during the year so that I can just pay and I don't have to go?

So, even then, you know, the door being slammed down your face, I still even remember my canvas or whatever you would call that.

But for me, it doesn't come naturally and I lose heart on my way home, you know, when I'm thinking about witnessing and work, my work.

As I'm driving home, I think about all those missed opportunities.

Like I saw it, identified it, I didn't do anything about it.

And because I was in a rush, got to get to the next patient.

Because you have to start in sorting out this idea about me as an ambassador of God or Jesus Christ.

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Series

Dental Track

The Unique Challenges of Sharing Christ in the Dental Office

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

From Testimony to Missionary, From Missionary to Emissary

56m

How to Overcome the Greatest Disease to Inflict Man

51m

The Unique Challenges of Sharing Christ in the Dental Office

46m

Sound Doctrine