Physician
Specialty: Family Medicine
Location: Togo
My dad made trips to the Philippines as a short term missionary when I was a child. I was enchanted with the idea of missions and of foreign cultures. I remember wondering at the idea of people in the world who did not know who Jesus was. My dad had grand plans of perhaps someday going into full-time missions, and he told me we would be a missionary family one day. Since about that time, I had it in my head that I would be a missionary.
My dad's dream never came to fruition, but my desire to go into missions stuck. From that time, at the age of seven, I viewed medical missions as a calling on my life. Because medicine was what I believed God wanted me to do rather than my personal goal, I never doubted that it would come to be. Each step in my progress toward that goal was viewed simply as another step to be taken, rather than a hurdle to be jumped. For example, despite being homeschooled in a home that met the standard for poverty in the USA, I never considered that getting into medical school is considered a difficult process or major achievement. I did well enough through college and on standardized tests, but certainly was not brilliant. I ended up applying to only one medical school (due to the cost of the application process) and was accepted. I have, at every turn, simply relied on the Lord to use me as He has planned. I have no ambition of my own in medicine or in anything else. Rather, I simply wish to be obedient to the Lord. In this regard, we feel as a family that we are called to long-term, career medical mission work.
My personal involvement will be primarily in the hospital and clinic. Typically, the medical work we do is curative, but there is medical maintenance and palliative treatment as well. Many patients are seen in the outpatient clinic and either treated for a curable condition or seen regularly for health maintenance (especially if they live close, otherwise they are advised on the type of follow up they'll need in their region).
In the hospital, I work in the following departments: men's ward, women's ward, pediatric ward, intensive unit, "ER", maternity ward, ultrasound & echocardiogram, anesthesiology. Patients in both locations are all exposed to the gospel.
I personally pray with patients on my rounds, and share the gospel when appropriate. I hope to grow the mobile clinic ministry and use that to target unreached or underreached people groups with the possibility of church planting. Beyond that, the whole family will be involved in ministry to young church plants while my wife also focuses on children's ministry and ministry to families of patients in the hospital.
- Keep the hospital operational in a resource-dependent model.
- Increase the scope and impact of the mobile clinic ministry.
- See churches planted and/or see church plants grow.