AMEN 2006: The Right Arm, the Right Approach, Right Now

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2006 Friday Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Lloyd Dayes

Arthur Weaver

Ministry After Retirement

Sorry, I would like to stay, but I have an appointment.

You have an appointment in Loma Linda tomorrow?

Well, you know, interestingly, there are no retirees in the group.

If nobody comes, you and I will have a discussion.

No, but you've done, I've been kind of following your work all along and you've certainly done a good work.

Whatever any of us have done is really by the strength and grace of God.

Seventy-seven is a little too early to retire.

So tell us a little about yourselves well we are from Jamaica original went to school of medicine at Loma Linda and then I had a classmate that was from Jamaica.

He was in school sometime when he's crossed paths and he...

Where did you, where did you, What school?

When I was through, I wrote home to Jamaica and say oh you'd be happy to know that I just got my medical degree and I'm coming to practice in Jamaica.

A letter came from the Medical Council, sorry we are British and we do not accept a United States medical degree.

I drove, my wife and I drove all the way to Montreal, Canada.

Went to McGill University and I was really interested in internal medicine.

But we had what is called a rotating internship.

I'm going to stay on the econ because I'm wanting to also see another seminar.

I'm sure enough, when I was through with neurosurgery in Canada...

I didn't intend to, but it was a rotating internship.

2 weeks, 2 months on orthopedics, 2 months on internal medicine, 2 months on...

When I was on neurosurgery, the resident was nice to me, he said, I'll show you how to put in a burr hole.

And the subdural came out, you know, and the chief came in and said, well, who did that?

Oh, 0, this young resident, this young intern here.

Oh, fellow, you should go into neurosurgery.

But after a while, He said, I'll make an appointment at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

So I said, I have it against the boys in Jamaica now because I write them and say, I'm the first Jamaican brain surgeon and I'm coming home to practice.

Later came back a few weeks, sorry we don't have enough money to pay a brain surgeon.

Oh I was crestfallen man and within a few weeks got a call from David Hinshaw, you know David Hinshaw?

John Chung

Richard Hart

Mission Possible: Short and Long Term Overseas Opportunities

Our Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time we can come together and talk about mission to other places of the world.

I pray that you be with us with your Holy Spirit and open our hearts and minds to receive you and with the things that we learned today, help us to put it to action.

I'm going to be speaking about short-term missions and Dr.

Hart will be speaking about long-term missions.

You know if you think about Jesus, He did both, didn't He?

He was, when He came down to this earth, He came as a long term missionary.

But when He was on this earth, He went to different villages.

He didn't stay there for a long time, right?

But he was very effective in his ministry in those small villages everywhere.

And you know, I've had experience with...

Hart will address the long-term mission, but I've done, over the last many years, short-term missions, 1 week to sometimes 2 weeks, And I've been really, really blessed by that.

A lot of times when we do mission service, it is we who get blessed.

And The very first time I ever went to a mission trip, it was to Guatemala.

We went to a village, a very, very remote village.

And no physician had ever gone there, none, from anywhere, Not even from their own country.

And here I was with 2 other doctors and these people living in you know just like cardboard boxes and and they gave us an incredible meal.

I mean, they brought out everything they had to give us a meal.

And, you know, there are kids there trying to eat the food.

They go, no, no, no, make sure nobody eats that.

Only the doctors and those people came to.

What really touched me was there was a man who came, heard about us and he came for 3 days.

He walked for 3 days to come to our to the clinic and when we got there when he got there we had run out of all the medications except Tylenol And he had classic symptoms of ulcers.

And as you know, ulcers, you don't treat ulcers with Tylenol.

And so here, You know, I felt so bad at that time.

Because they said He came for 3 days and he was having so much pain.

And I said, we can only give him what we have.

Hopefully, this Tylenol can give him some relief.

But the thing is, the missionary mission trip, the medical mission trip, was in conjunction with a spiritual.

We had a minister there who gave the gospel message to all these people and they were very very receptive and this man went to the pastor learned about the truth of the gospel about Jesus and you know what?

We couldn't give him the prescription for his medicine, but we actually gave him the prescription for eternal life.

Every single person that we reach or we talk to or we cure in this life they all die.

Every single person that Jesus raised from the dead, where are they?

So mission service, missionary work, short term mission, we may not think it may do any good, but it can lead somebody to, you know, eternal life.

My daughter recently went to Panama, And when she was there, she went with a doctor who was a radiologist.

And they met a student, a medical student, a fourth year medical student, who was totally bald and had no eyebrows.

And they found out that he had this mass and they didn't know exactly what it was, but they knew it was some type of a cancer.

And so what they did was they tried to treat it with some type of chemotherapy, but it was not a specific 1 because they didn't know exactly what cancer they were treating.

So this radiologist said, why don't you come to the United States?

And so he came, and now he's living at our house, and they're trying to figure out what he has.

Finally, they did a PET scan and all these, and they did a retroperitoneal biopsy, and they found out he has a poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma that has spread all over his body.

And last Wednesday, which was 2 days ago, 2 nights ago, we had an anointing service.

And he gave a testimony about how this mission trip had affected his life, how it changed his life And his testimony was so beautiful.

He said, you know, instead of blaming God, he said, You know what?

This, I'm so thankful that because God has given me time for me to prepare.

He already has this great perspective in life.

And hopefully through this, through American medicine, he may be cured.

I mean, we don't know exactly what's going to happen to him, but we're all praying that he'll get better.

But in that 1 earnting service, there were 3 people that had been coming to our Bible studies every once a night for some time.

Yesterday, I got a call from them and said, John, I'd like to say something.

Her name was Michelle and her husband and 1 of their friends.

You know we were so moved by that worship service that you had.

How do I become, how do we become Seventh-day Adventists?

So here was just a small, just a mission service, a short short term, just going there once.

It has changed 3 people's lives who are already here.

And there may be more people being affected by it, by the service and by his testimony.

And so, you know, when Jesus went from town to town, there was basically a short-term mission.

Although his mission was a long-term mission on this earth, but he did a lot of short-term missions all over the world.

And what did he do when he died, after his death?

Converted the world by what he did on this earth.

And I'm sure all these people who listened to him after his death were converted.

So, you know, some people criticize the short-term mission thing, but I think it has a lot of benefit because you don't know who you're going to reach.

And there are so many organizations that you can go and...

My daughter went with share him you know that is this with doctor I mean a for Falkenberg right global evangelism And also you can go with It is Written and also with Amazing Facts.

I think with Amazing Facts you have to go for 3 weeks because you're going to India.

Places like that, if you're going to a long-term place, I mean places far away, you need to put aside at least 3 weeks to do that.

It takes about 4 days to get there, I think, another few days to get back.

So Don't expect to go there, set aside a time for a week and go to India and stay there for like 3 hours and come back.

I don't really have that much more to say about the short term mission.

Now I'm going to turn over my time to Dr.

I'm sitting here trying to think whether I've ever been in an audience where I've been talking to both a former teacher and my students.

Mark Finley

Foundations of the Adventist Health Message: What Makes Adventist Doctors Unique?

I'm delighted to spend a few minutes with you studying the Word of God, studying the ministry of Jesus.

And I don't know if we've had prayer yet, but...

Father, we thank you that as we study your word, that the living Christ speaks to our hearts and draws us closer to him.

We pray now as we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we walk through the Gospels and we see how he ministered to people, how he cared for people, that you would give us those loving, compassionate hearts to be a blessing to others in Christ's name.

How many of you are students of allied health professions?

So most of you are studying either to be physicians, to be dentists.

Anybody else who's with us that you're nursing students?

I want to spend a little time with you reflecting on medical missionary work.

If I asked you the question, and let's suppose you were doing an oral comprehensive for a PhD, and In the middle of the discussion that you were talking about physiology Tim Your professor looked up at you, and he said by the way would you define medical missionary work for me?

Anybody in our class this afternoon give me a 1 sentence definition just 1 sentence.

Medical missionary work is, in less than 20 words.

Okay, 1 sentence definition of medical missionary work.

I would say Ellen White's title of her book is The Ministry of Healing.

Medical missionary work is the ministry of healing.

Could a Buddhist do a ministry of healing?

Could a secular person do a ministry of healing if you didn't believe in God?

I suppose it depends on how you define ministry, doesn't it?

Healing, ministry of healing, some other definitions.

Medical missionary work is saving the body and soul saving the body and soul for heaven.

If you charge, is it medical missionary work?

So it has to do with compassion and revealing the Gospel in life.

It's a ministry, we've talked about that, that has to do with body and soul, it has to do with compassion.

I'd say using medical technology and arts to create an opportunity for interaction in which to introduce or strengthen somebody's interaction or experience with Christ.

So when some people think of medical missionary work, they don't think very much about technology, do they?

They think more about maybe home remedies or something that, but you would include technology in that whole aspect of ministry.

Modeling the healing, preaching, teaching ministry of Jesus.

It gets Don's idea of ministry in, It gets the compassion in, it gets body and soul in, it gets technology in.

Okay, anybody else want to add something?

And you could also say physical, mental, and spiritual restoration, or ministering to the dying of all diseases.

When you think of medical missionary work, is that exclusively limited to those who have medical degrees?

I would sort of, you know, slice words a little bit and try to say medical missionary is for people who are trained in the healthcare professions and health ministry I would say is the layman's approach.

Okay, So you'd make a distinction between health ministry and medical ministry.

There, treating with the neighbor, and helping them in that way.

As we look at spirit prophecy, that would be I think, medical missionary.

As we work with the church, I think it's helpful to make it distinct.

Did anybody else want to share something?

It has an integration of the body, the mind, and the heart.

Okay, so there's an integration in medical missionary work.

I'd like to spend some time studying, yes.

I'm gonna disagree a bit with Steve, not terribly, but I think that medical missionary work is not just being an evangelist in a business setting.

Like ASI, it's the marketplace to reach people.

I think a true medical missionary work actually changes our practice of healthcare.

Meeting the health needs with the attitude of Jesus.

Medical missionary work is meeting health needs with the attitudes of Jesus.

If we took down every sentence, we would probably have the beginnings of the first chapter of a good book, wouldn't we?

I'd like to study with you for a little while the compassionate ministry of Jesus and I'd like to introduce it with a classic story of Dr.

Phil Mills

Edwin Nebblett

Maria Nebblett

Ministering to Your Own Family While Ministering to Others

We are very, very grateful that from the Neblets incredibly packed schedule, speaking in many, many places, in addition to what we all do, which is see patients, The Neblets have consented to share with us a section that I think is perhaps 1 of the most important of the week.

And how can medical evangelism not be just 1 more thing that we need to do and if we don't do 1 more thing we feel guilty about, 1 more thing to take us away from our family, 1 more project and our plate is already full.

Neblett, I have to share with you that I found that being busy was like alcohol.

See, I could use, because I was busy, I could use it as a reason for not doing anything that I didn't want to do.

And so you had a wonderful escape to do whatever you wanted and to avoid doing what you just didn't really want to do, that maybe even God wanted you to do, because you were busy.

I discovered it was also a wonderful escape.

If I couldn't have time to really do it very well, well everybody knew that he was busy.

So it made just a wonderful, wonderful reason to be able to evade true responsibility and to give me an out.

And it wasn't until I realized that actually nobody is too busy, everybody is simply doing what they choose to do, that the Lord helped me to gain control of my schedule and get over, to a small degree, I suppose I still am somewhat of an alcoholic, but to get over in a small degree the alcoholism of busyness.

He has created in heaven, when you think about it, He created just enough angels to do all the work that was needed to be done to keep them occupied but never anxious.

Just enough angels to even in the midst of sin do what needs to be done and still have time for rest.

The wonderful thing about the 10 Commandment law is the fourth commandment.

But the fourth commandment gives us a time for rest.

Jesus said to his disciples, come apart and rest awhile.

So I am very interested in hearing from Dr.

Neblitt and his wife the issues that all of us have faced in balancing various priorities.

Neblitt was able to balance them in 1 particular way and it may give us ideas as to how we can balance our priorities as well.

I was just looking to see how this was arranged.

And from the look of it, if I were to clip this on here, that might solve the problem.

Why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Precious Heavenly Father, we know that you want to teach us, instruct us in the way that we need to go.

Help us, Lord, to come to an understanding of how we can do your will in our homes and outside of our homes.

I have a question for you was Christ busy?

The real issue is that when Christ was here, whose will did He do?

Now the question that's before us is Whose will are we doing?

I have to tell you that we struggled with this issue.

And I've come to the conclusion that regardless of whether you see yourself in a life of ministry, all of us are in ministry.

We just minister in different ways and in different places.

The question is whether we are in a ministry for good or for not good.

But we are doing, we're having an influence, we're having an impact.

But our ministry, to put it in a very simplistic term, we are in the fruit business.

Matthew 7, if you brought your Bibles with you.

Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.

Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them." Now, as Christians, the fruits of the Spirit is what the world sees.

And this fruit is the result of our relationship with Jesus Christ and it is going to be seen in our lives.

The question that's before us is in the work of the Master whether or not you are working in the home or outside of the home or you're in the marketplace the question is what is the status of your fruit?

We need to be fruit inspectors, if you will.

And the question is what fruit do you see in your children?

What fruit do you see in your grandchildren?

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Series

AMEN 2006 Friday Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Ministering to Your Own Family While Ministering to Others

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

Ministry After Retirement

30m

Mission Possible: Short and Long Term Overseas Opportunities

1h 19m

Foundations of the Adventist Health Message: What Makes Adventist Doctors Unique?

1h 19m

Ministering to Your Own Family While Ministering to Others

1h 29m

Sound Doctrine