Once For All
The 2004 National Students' Conference is fast approaching. The title is 'Once for All', looking at the person and work of Jesus in the book of Hebrews, and dates are 13-15 February. Nigel Lee, former head of student ministries at UCCF, will give the Bible addresses. Marjory Foyle, former medical missionary and author of Honourably Wounded will give the conference address on 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Face of Missions'. A great range of seminars will examine issues at the interface of Christianity and medicine. Students should book early for this, the highlight of the CMF student year.
Answering Other Faiths
Our student members are faced with an ever-increasing mixture of other religions and worldviews in their fellow students. The faiths of the whole world are thrown together in the universities of the UK and Christian students can often be bewildered, not knowing how to respond. Answering Other Faiths is a CMF evangelism training day conference with a difference that helps students look at other faiths, understand and ask questions, then share the gospel in ways they can understand.
Answering Other Faiths has been recently redeveloped and streamlined. It is a 10am- 5pm day conference that can be run by CMF staff at the request of medical school groups and provides great training for a university mission. The revamped course was run in London on 1 November and was extremely helpful to those students that came. Virtually all the participants were non-Anglo-Saxon and many had come from other faith backgrounds themselves, which made for some great discussions!
Contact us at the office if you would like to run a day in your area.
Student Staff Training
The CMF staffworkers and relay workers (plus the general secretary and student secretary!) spent an excellent two days in November receiving training in giving apologetic/evangelistic talks. Richard Cunningham led the sessions at his home in Oxfordshire. The talks ranged from 'What does God think about sex?' to 'Isn't Christianity arrogant?' and each speaker was grilled and critiqued by the others after giving their talk. It was a great time together, with good training and an encouraging standard of talks. Richard has just been appointed as UCCF's new director of student ministries from Easter 2004, so we look forward to continuing to work closely in the future!
Elective Days
CMF and MMAHealthserve have a huge amount of information and contacts to help any student organise a developing world elective. Some of this is brought together at their annual Electives Days, where returning students, mission agency representatives and mission hospital staff all give their own perspectives and a wealth of resources are available.
Dates for 2004 are: Leeds - Saturday 6 March; London - Wednesday 17 March. Publicity was mailed to all CMF student members during January and further copies are available from the CMF office. The events are accessible to Christians and non- Christians alike but with a distinct Christian ethos.
The content has been revised and will include coverage of such issues as 'Should I get practically involved in surgical procedures in the light of the risks of HIV/AIDS?' (many Medical Schools are actively discouraging overseas electives); 'Keeping healthy on your elective' and 'After your elective - what next?'
Nick and Kate Wooding who successfully ran the elective programme at Kiwoko Hospital in Uganda will be speaking at both days. Simon Clift and Annie McCarthy from Interhealth will also be involved in the London Day.
International Activity
CMF's strong international student links continue. Preparations are well underway for the annual International Students' Preconference in the week immediately preceding the National Students' Conference (9-13 February 2004). Student leaders, mainly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, will spend a week in London for teaching in medical ethics and experience of how Christian doctors put these principles into practice. This will be the sixth year of operation and each year's event has been of significant help in strengthening some of the developing medical student movements in these countries. Please pray for remaining preparations, especially for visas, flight costs and local student hosts to be arranged.
We are also hoping to have a good UK contingent at the 2004 ICMDA European regional conference in Krelingen, near Hannover, Germany, later this year (See ICMDA News). Dates are 5-8 September for the students and juniors preconference and 8-12 September for the main conference.
