MedAdvance connects healthcare professionals to needs on mission field

HOUSTON — MedAdvance has drawn healthcare professionals across the country since 2007. Doctors, nurses, therapists, nutritionists, pharmacists, fitness instructors, community health workers, other specialists and non-medical attendees gather at the annual event to hear how the International Mission Board is using global healthcare strategies to reach the lost all over the world.

This year, MedAdvance was held in Houston, Texas, Sept. 12-14, at Houston’s First Baptist Church. More than 250 people attended the conference and connected with IMB personnel, including 42 missionaries who represented the IMB’s eight affinity groups.

Dr. Tom Hicks, IMB director of global healthcare strategies, leads MedAdvance programming and said he was encouraged by the event’s success.

“MedAdvance allows us to reach a broad section of healthcare providers,” Hicks said. “There’s a lot of doors that they can open on the mission field that they may not know about, and we want to be able to connect them with those opportunities.”

Participants took time to network in between meetings and at meals. Medical students interacted with medical missionaries. Dentists met with church planters and field staff to plan clinics.

A doctor who worked with NASA attended to see how she can have an impact on the mission field. A retired hospital administrator attended previous events and came to Houston to reconnect with IMB friends, offering encouragement and prayer.

Worship sessions featured prayer times, mission reports and messages from Jeff Ginn, IMB vice president of mobilization. A total of 16 breakout sessions offered topics ranging from “Addressing Human Needs in Your Community” to “Engaging Hinduism” to how other healthcare areas of expertise can be used to reach the lost.

Affinity Marathon gives full scope of IMB global healthcare

A distinct feature that MedAdvance offers each year is the Affinity Marathon. Attendees hear reports from IMB affinities in rotations of 25-minute segments.

Missionaries from all eight of IMB’s affinities participated in this year’s marathon. Affinities represent collections of people groups that share similar origins, languages and cultures. Hicks explained the global nature of IMB’s work makes the organization unique in the service it has to offer. He said a valuable part of the event is that participants can trace the connection from healthcare to church planting in different cultures.

Leaders emphasized how healthcare specialties can come alongside field personnel and help reach the lost in all areas of the world.

Sarah Murray, a medical student at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, attended MedAdvance for the first time and was curious about the Affinity Marathon when she saw it on the schedule.

The marathon allowed Murray to hear all reports of IMB mission work instead of having to pick and choose, missing out on other affinity presentations.

“If you don’t know what you don’t know, you are limited in hearing the needs that are out there,” she said. “The Affinity Marathon is a great setup because what opportunities are available in one area are different from the ones in another area. I’ve enjoyed this experience.”

• Missionaries among the Deaf Affinity shared how this people group is often neglected and overlooked all over the world. Marathon participants with an interest in working with the Deaf were encouraged to seek out leaders in other affinity groups and ask how they can offer healthcare assistance to Deaf nationals.
• Among the healthcare needs reported in South Asia were assistance in delivering babies and pre-natal care in many of its overpopulated countries.
• Missionaries who serve among Central Asians shared the progress happening among children with special needs including a camp that started six years ago.
• Conference leaders representing Asian Pacific Rim peoples reported how a fitness center was used to start a church, and another church started from a ministry offering eye examinations and glasses.
• In Central and South America, opportunities are open for healthcare professionals to come next summer to minister to refugees.
• Workers among Northern African and Middle Eastern peoples shared needs within countries closed to the gospel and how medical missions is an effective way of sharing the gospel since other forms of mission work are not permitted.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, one out of three people are displaced, which means healthcare ministries are in great need.
• Europe is mostly open for medical mission work, but event participants were surprised to hear that the continent is predominantly unreached with the gospel due largely to postmodernism.

Ginn challenges MedAdvance attendees to ‘Go and Tell’

In his opening message at the conference, Ginn preached from 2 Kings 7, about the four lepers who went to the deserted Aramean camp and gathered all the treasure for themselves. The lepers realized that hoarding all the valuables was not right and concluded they should go and tell others about the treasure.

Ginn used the example of the lepers to challenge those at MedAdvance to use their talents and experience in the healthcare field to share the gospel with the lost.

“God doesn’t want us to be spiritual misers, wealthy in gospel knowledge yet hoarding and hiding it instead of sharing it,” he said. “We know the medicine, if you will, that heals the world’s greatest problem. We must go and tell.”

MedAdvance 2025 is scheduled to meet Aug. 21-23 at Providence Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. For those interested in MedAdvance or global healthcare strategies, visit imb.org/healthcare.