Keeping in touch and ongoing intercession for members working abroad
They say that ‘no news is good news’ but the writer to Proverbs once wrote ‘Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a far country’ (Proverbs 25:25). It’s so easy to forget those of our members or even our personal friends, when they have gone abroad. Perhaps ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is a truer aphorism.
It is good to honour the promises we made to keep in touch and these days it is easier with email and mobile phone. If nothing else, we can remember them in prayer but practical demonstrations that we care never go amiss and the odd bar of chocolate or jar of marmite are always welcome.
Elsewhere in this newsletter you will find a list of those of our members who have recently gone to work overseas. Please do pray for them, not just once but on a regular basis – that they will quickly adjust to their new environment and culture, learn to understand and make themselves understood, and feel that they are making a worthwhile contribution. Pray too for those who are listed as returning to the UK. Reverse culture shock is very real and all sorts of emotions – of bereavement, anger, anxiety, guilt and depression, arise in the early days of re-entry. They all have to be worked through while at the same time dealing with all the hassles of finding and setting up a new home, revalidating, finding a job, settling the children in school, etc.
There are endless opportunities to get involved in meeting the needs of the poor without even leaving these shores, in prayer and advocacy – including the current campaign to make poverty history (www.makepovertyhistory.org) but once you go overseas your view of life and work will never be the same again.
Developing Health Course 2005
About 30 doctors and ten other health professionals from ten countries attended this two-week residential course for Christian healthcare professionals working overseas on 3-15 July at Oak Hill College, North London. Participants were treated to teaching on the latest developments in appropriate technology healthcare from a host of cutting edge speakers with extensive handson experience. The course featured four modules: medical, surgical, spiritual refreshment and member care.
As a new development separate day courses were run within the main course this year for those who wished to major on developing world paediatrics, HIV/AIDS care and serving abroad as a healthcare professional.
One of these, the HealthServe Day on 9 July, proved extremely popular as a day conference in its own right with over 60 attending.
The full course is now available as the Developing Health CD, soon to be fully updated.
Plans for short-term trips
These continue to be discussed and researched. Two streams are under consideration. The first is multidisciplinary capacity building teams linked to the needs of our members working overseas, responding to their requests for assistance. The second is mission experience trips offering members the opportunity to experience what it is like to work overseas and challenge them to get involved. We are in touch with some of our overseas members who have expressed a desire for such teams to visit them asking for further clarification as to what is needed and await their response.
In the meantime, the missions experience trip that SIM are organising in September is now fully booked (with several CMF members going). I’m sure they would love to take others. Please contact them and express an interest (www.sim.co.uk). BMS will be taking further capacity building teams to Bangladesh in November and possibly Uganda in 2006. Visit their website for details (www.bmsworldmission.org).
