Missions

Introduction

This article presents a practical model or method for dental and medical evangelism in foreign countries used most effectively to help establish and grow local churches. Of course, it is ultimately God who works in people’s lives to draw them to saving faith in Jesus Christ (John 6:44). No evangelistic formula or technique will save anyone. But God expects us to be wise, prepared, faithful servants when we take the gospel to another country.

The model for effectively using field teams of health professionals discussed below is a proven way to help fulfill our part of the Great Commission as we look to God to work a miracle in people’s hearts to draw them to salvation. Ideally, a missionary or national local church hosting a field team should be involved in all parts of the model. Where it cannot, the field team can fill in some of the gaps. But the best path to success is when national pastors and local church believers actively participate in each step of the process.

Kopano Baptist Church near Pretoria, South Africa, is about as unassuming an assembly as you will find anywhere on planet earth. Actually, you won’t find it at all unless an informed local leads you there. This fledgling church is tucked away off a rural road in a dusty village where neither fame nor fortune has ever dared show face. But God has.

According to church-growth gurus, Kopano Baptist Church is doing absolutely everything wrong. But unfazed by the dictates of such experts, God is working wonders in this obscure village through this humble church. Theirs is a story that will never be recorded on the glossy pages of prestigious journals or heralded in documentaries touting the latest ecclesiastical success story. Yet theirs is a story worthy of broadcast.

The village Kopano serves has no running water or sewer, no asphalt or gravel roads, no cars, sidewalks, street lamps or grass. Here the only things in noticeable abundance are stray dogs, brazen rats, cheap booze and abject poverty.

Kopano Baptist Church meets in an abandoned produce barn: no windows or interior walls, no carpet or restrooms, no banners, crosses, pictures, or decorative touches of any sort save the small hand-painted sign attached to the front wall that reads simply: “Kopano Baptist Church.” A few plastic chairs supplement the wooden crates that serve as pews. A string of four naked bulbs hangs over the center aisle—the electricity supplied via an extension cord plugged into the outlet of a nearby flat. Several candles waxed to the cement floor encircle the assembly to serve during the inevitable power outage. Parishioners share space with the rats—an improvement on an earlier day when rats shared space with the parishioners.

Nineteenth-century Christian missions exploded across the globe with the general expectation that the gospel would penetrate the whole world, and that the evangelism of the world would conceivably be completed within a century or so. That sense of optimism is not so prevalent today, probably in part because of the decline of Christianity in parts of the world that were at one time the fountainhead of Christian faith.

Reprinted with permission from Frontline Missions International. All rights reserved.

There is a spot near the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, a little marble circle that marks what the ancient Chinese believed to be the very center of the universe. Today this cosmic bulls-eye is just a place for grinning tourists to stand and have their picture taken. However, many ancient peoples had similar beliefs about their realm being at the center of things. Why else, for example, would one say, “All roads lead to Rome”? While it is an interesting idea that the center of the universe is located in Beijing or Rome, I am not convinced. In fact, I think the chair I am sitting in writing this article may just as likely be the true center of the universe! Seriously though, when it comes to missions, I am afraid that for too long, many of us here in America have behaved as if we were at the center of the universe.

In olden days, designating a particular place as the center of the universe was easy because to many ancients, their world was flat and relatively small. After a whole “new world” was discovered, though, little maps grew into great globes, and centers were more difficult to designate. Similarly, in the missions realm, the world is very different from the one that William Carey, Adoniram Judson, and Hudson Taylor lived in.

These men and other missionary trailblazers inspired their generation to answer the Great Call. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, missionary ranks were filled mostly by those from the English-speaking world: British, American, and Canadian. As they crossed continents and cultures with the Gospel, though, things changed. People of every nation, tongue, and tribe were saved through faith in Christ. Churches sprang up, and Christians in many lands began sharing the Gospel with their own countrymen.

Maybe three years in Poland has left me somewhat nostalgic, but I love America; I miss America. As Ginger and I learn the language and observe this culture so foreign to our own, we often find ourselves comparing the two. One culture is home, and the other, well … it’s growing on us. Many similarities can be observed but a few stark differences exist.

From: Rev. Alexander Demas
New Ekklesia Church, Thessalonica

To: Missionary Saul Paulus (The Apostle Paul)
C/c: Church at Antioch

Dear Brother Paul,

Read Part 1.

Keri: I know that you and Vitaliy both have a lot of ministries going on and you had talked earlier on about your nurse midwife dream and I’d like you to tell the listeners about how the Lord is bringing some of that to fruition in your life now.

Anne: That desire to be a midwife has never really left me. You know it goes under the water for a while but it always resurfaces. It’s like it follows me. About two years ago I started studying to be a doula and childbirth educator. I started studying with a Christian organization called Charis Childbirth. I never really saw how I could do it here because birth here is kind of a mystery for me. I knew women usually have horrible experiences, but it was hard to get any real details and to really know what it looked like. But I started studying this class and through women in my church, I started teaching them childbirth preparation classes. Then I was able to accompany them at their births.

That has been a major eye opener—seeing an actual birth in a birth house. Other women choose to have home births and I have watched how those things happen. The women in my church, and the husbands too, have been so thankful for this ministry that is unique and something that not very many people do. They are so happy to be having happy birth experiences.

Now I’m starting to get clients who are not Christians, and it has been wonderful to have chances to witness to them. Lately, I’ve been working with a couple from Belgium. They are English speakers. Vitaliy and I went out to dinner with them and he presented the gospel to them. It’s neat how childbirth is such an open time in people’s lives. Being educated about it and serving people makes them so open to listen to you about any area of life. It has made people really open to the Lord. I’m really thankful for that.

Keri: So, Anne, I’m excited to talk to you. This is the first time we’ve ever spoken.

Anne: I’m excited to be here with you!

Keri: I told Anne she was my guinea pig, because I’ve never done an interview on my blog before. Why don’t you tell us just a little bit about how a girl went from Chattanooga and ended up in the Ukraine?

Anne: When I was in high school we had a lot of missionaries come in and out of our church. That was also the time when the wall of Communism fell in Eastern Europe. I’d heard a lot of things about Russia and the former Soviet Union, and my dream became—well, let me back up a little bit. I had a lot of other interests. I was also interested in the pro-life movement and I was involved in that in my hometown. I also wanted to be a nurse midwife. That was my dream.

So I combined all these things, and I wanted to be a missionary in Russia and help women who were having abortions because there was such an astronomical abortion rate in Russia. My dream was to have a home for women who were in crisis pregnancies and I would be their midwife and help them be able to work, go to school, and not have to abort their babies. This was my whole dream.