CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
The past year has seen much change, both at every level within MMA HealthServe, as well as for the constituency that we wish to serve. Around us we see mission agencies facing financial hardship and major re-thinking of strategy, while the needs of the poor and the marginalised seem to be more pressing than ever. We have become acutely aware of how hard it is for many mission and development agencies to find skilled health workers: our Vacancies Bulletin, launched in 2002, has seen a significant growth in size as it has advertised more vacancies for an increasing number of agencies but, frustratingly, the feedback is that all agencies are finding fewer health professionals willing or able to come forward for long-term service. However, the interest in opportunities for short-term service seems to be growing whilst the days of the long-term missionary working in one place for a life-time are rapidly passing, to be replaced by people who work flexibly both in the West and the developing world, coming in to meet specific needs and tackle specific projects, before taking their specialist expertise to other needy areas while nationals increasingly take over the long-term work once done by expatriates.
There is great upheaval for all involved in Christian mission, not just in health work among the poor. It is time to review how and why we are engaged in such work, and whether our old models and ways of working fit with the world we now find ourselves a part of. Some things must never change – a strong, on-going commitment to the poor, to the authority of scripture in informing our vision and practice, to sound scientific medical and healthcare knowledge, to radical servanthood and discipleship. But other areas, however well they may have served us in the past, may have to change or even disappear. The New Wine will need New Wineskins.
The vision of MMA HealthServe’s founders one hundred and twenty five years ago was “The promotion of real Godliness amongst medical men and medical students, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, by such means as may from time to time seem advisable, and to help forward such Christian work, both at home and abroad, as may properly lie within the spheres of medical agencies.” We have sought to fulfil that aim in many ways – through the provision of hostel accommodation to health professionals in training who are seeking to serve in mission, by giving grants to students undertaking electives at mission hospitals, in running training courses such as the annual Residential Refresher Course, and through our many different publications down the years. We now have expanded these activities into a comprehensive website, and a CD-ROM of training resources based on the Residential Refresher
Course. However, despite moving with the times, over the past twelve months we have had to return to our founding minutes of March 2 1878 to remind ourselves of our core values. Our heart and vision are not just the provision of information and training and other resources but, above all, to encourage men and women of Christian faith working or training in all the healthcare disciplines to look to God and grow in faith and find their place in global mission. Firstly, we have finally closed our hostel in North London, Harcourt House, and invested the funds from the sale into the continuing development of the HealthServe Resource Centre. Hostel accommodation as the early leaders of MMA originally envisaged it has not been needed in the same way for many years.
Secondly, we have felt the need to prepare for the future by looking at reducing our running costs and exploring collaborative relationships with likeminded organisations. The Council of MMA HealthServe now believes that the work can best be carried forward by preparing for a merger with the Christian Medical Fellowship, with whom we have had an extremely long and productive relationship over many years. CMF aims to meet the professional and spiritual needs of its members, as well as mobilising and supporting them in missionary service. So it seemed natural that the two organisations should merge – maintaining the multidisciplinary aspect of MMA HealthServe’s work within CMF’s membership of over 4000 doctors in the UK and its extensive links with other medical fellowships around the world.
We look ahead to 2004, to a time where the work that has been ongoing for over 125 years will continue under a new umbrella with some of the same faces and many new ones. It will be a time of great transition but also, under God, one of great expectation. We are thankful to the Lord, to our staff and to all our faithful supporters for all that is accomplished for His Glory through MMA HealthServe.
Howard Lyons
August 2003
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
It is sometimes tempting to think that in God’s Kingdom there is no change; that what was still is, and what is ever more shall be. But while that may be true of certain unchanging aspects of God’s character and His Covenant with us, everything else is far from static.
At a conference I attended in Vancouver in June of this year, Miriam Adeney of Regent College spoke eloquently of how God loves diversity and creativity – in the infinite diversity of Creation and the multiplicity of culture among humans – all speak of a God who is endlessly creative. More to the point, He invites us to join in the creativity with Him. In our humble way, I hope that we have joined in that creativity in our work over the past year here at the HealthServe office.
One of the major changes has been the evolution of our website at www.healthserve.org into a database driven, searchable information resource, including details of vacancies and opportunities for health professionals in mission, an archive of articles from our various publications over the last eight years, and a new database of healthcare and medical mission resources, links and contacts in the Healthserve Pages (as reported in the last edition of our magazine). We have also now set up a series of email alerts that people can sign up for on the site, giving details of events, courses, vacancies for health professionals in mission agencies, and updates on elective reports.
Also recently published on our website and in hard copy is ‘Elective Life Support’, an eight week cycle of readings and scriptural meditations for students taking electives in mission hospitals and other developing world settings.
Other developments have included new on-line elective resources and short-term mission opportunities sections (which, along with the HealthServe Pages are available in hard copy from the office). We have also produced a CD-ROM (‘Developing Health’) based on the course content of the Residential Refresher Course.
GENERAL ACTIVITY
A significant part of our day-to-day activity in the office is dealing with requests from health professionals, students, churches and mission agencies. Increasingly these are coming to us by email and from our website questionnaire (51% and 33% respectively).
Overall in 2003, up to the end of August we have dealt with 473 individual requests – a third (33%) from students enquiring about elective placements.
To the end of August 2003 we had given 30 elective grants – somewhat down on last year (total grants given = 62). Our aim had been to see 125 students supported in the course of 2002/2003 – and we still aim to support that many students in the long run, but we also recognise that there are many factors slowing down the number of students taking electives in the developing world (more on this later in this report). 27% of all enquiries were from professionals wanting help and advice about working overseas in mission, 16% from indigenous missions, churches and hospitals looking to find networks and partnerships or looking for funding, and 24% were general enquiries for information, resources and advice.
On average, we are dealing with around fourteen enquiries a week. This excludes the enquiries that come through to the CMF office, which are dealt with there by our Medical Director. In many ways, the merger with CMF is likely to show a marked increase in the amount of activity we deal with daily as a team.
These figures are encouraging – while there may be difficulties in getting long-term healthcare staff to work in mission, and this remains a big issue, but there is no real diminution of interest in working overseas among Christian health professionals.
ANNIVERSARY
As you will have read, we held our 125th anniversary celebration and mini-conference at Oak Hill College this summer, during the middle weekend of the Residential Refresher Course. Previous editions of the magazine have outlined in more depth the history of the MMA over these 125 years, but it is encouraging to see how in the third century in which we have existed as an organisation, the needs for and interest in mission remain as acute as ever. That there were as many (if not more) students and younger qualified health professionals as older or retired workers at the conference speaks volumes to me again of how much there is still a passion and a calling among the younger generations to respond the Great Commission.
That we have seen a fall of in attendees at elective days and some other events is not reflected in a down turn in interest in mission (as our activity statistics have shown) – it is more a reflection of the difficulties and obstacles put in the way of the younger generations by their courses, employers, professional bodies, and wider culture. We need to learn to help them find their ways round these obstacles rather than throw up our hands and despair, and make the all too common error of believing that the coming generation do not have what it takes. Let us be encouragers and enablers rather than discouragers and naysayers.
OFFICE
After nearly four years based here in the historic heart of the East End of London, we are preparing to move offices to Waterloo in Central South London in December/January. Despite being impossibly hot in summer, and impossible to heat in winter, these spacious offices have served us well, providing plenty of space for meetings, storing resources, as well as being very easy to access by public transport. There are other benefits as well: in the summer, the sound of Bollywood film music filters in through the open widows, in autumn and spring the streets and people come to life to celebrate Diwali and Eid, and all year round there is the aroma of spicy cooking wafting in from the nearby council flats. Sandwiched as we are between the City of London and Canary Wharf – two of the major powerhouses of the British, and indeed global economy, this poor, largely South-Asian, Muslim community sits like an island apart, surrounded by the opulence of these financial districts. In many ways, this location has been apt reminder to us of the divided world that we seek to serve, and of the many who do not know the One who came to save that world. Waterloo will seem tame and quiet by comparison!
The last year has also seen us say goodbye to two creative and energetic team members. Rachel East, our one-time Administrator and latterly our Fundraiser left us in January to travel the world and is now working as a freelance writer for various Christian agencies. Nick Mott, who re-designed and expanded our website, database and other IT systems has moved on as well, going back with his wife to work in Turkey with Operation Mobilisation.
The contributions and creative input of both these team members has been greatly appreciated, and greatly missed after their departures. Looking back over the last fifty year’s minutes of the MMA recently, I was struck by the vast number of people who have passed through the MMA in one way or another down the years, many to go on into or return to ministry overseas. It is an encouragement that we have seen many of our staff go on to bigger and better things for God after serving us faithfully. God does not promise that things will be stable, but he does promise that He will work ultimate good out of change and hardship.
THE FUTURE
Much has been and will be written elsewhere about the merger with CMF. This has been discussed and prayed over as an option many times in the last thirty years or so, but there seems a rightness to it happening at this time. There will be no immediate changes in staff – Peter, Laura and myself will continue to work together as a team within CMF, certainly for the next year or so. The website will remain, and this magazine will continue in one form or another. It is an exciting time, but also a daunting one – change is never easy, but when it is God ordained, the Holy Spirit can bring wonderful fruit out of it. Please continue to pray for the Councils and the staff teams of HealthServe and CMF over the coming transitional months.
Steven Fouch
August 2003
The past year has seen much change, both at every level within MMA HealthServe, as well as for the constituency that we wish to serve. Around us we see mission agencies facing financial hardship and major re-thinking of strategy, while the needs of the poor and the marginalised seem to be more pressing than ever. We have become acutely aware of how hard it is for many mission and development agencies to find skilled health workers: our Vacancies Bulletin, launched in 2002, has seen a significant growth in size as it has advertised more vacancies for an increasing number of agencies but, frustratingly, the feedback is that all agencies are finding fewer health professionals willing or able to come forward for long-term service. However, the interest in opportunities for short-term service seems to be growing whilst the days of the long-term missionary working in one place for a life-time are rapidly passing, to be replaced by people who work flexibly both in the West and the developing world, coming in to meet specific needs and tackle specific projects, before taking their specialist expertise to other needy areas while nationals increasingly take over the long-term work once done by expatriates.
There is great upheaval for all involved in Christian mission, not just in health work among the poor. It is time to review how and why we are engaged in such work, and whether our old models and ways of working fit with the world we now find ourselves a part of. Some things must never change – a strong, on-going commitment to the poor, to the authority of scripture in informing our vision and practice, to sound scientific medical and healthcare knowledge, to radical servanthood and discipleship. But other areas, however well they may have served us in the past, may have to change or even disappear. The New Wine will need New Wineskins.
The vision of MMA HealthServe’s founders one hundred and twenty five years ago was “The promotion of real Godliness amongst medical men and medical students, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, by such means as may from time to time seem advisable, and to help forward such Christian work, both at home and abroad, as may properly lie within the spheres of medical agencies.” We have sought to fulfil that aim in many ways – through the provision of hostel accommodation to health professionals in training who are seeking to serve in mission, by giving grants to students undertaking electives at mission hospitals, in running training courses such as the annual Residential Refresher Course, and through our many different publications down the years. We now have expanded these activities into a comprehensive website, and a CD-ROM of training resources based on the Residential Refresher
Course. However, despite moving with the times, over the past twelve months we have had to return to our founding minutes of March 2 1878 to remind ourselves of our core values. Our heart and vision are not just the provision of information and training and other resources but, above all, to encourage men and women of Christian faith working or training in all the healthcare disciplines to look to God and grow in faith and find their place in global mission. Firstly, we have finally closed our hostel in North London, Harcourt House, and invested the funds from the sale into the continuing development of the HealthServe Resource Centre. Hostel accommodation as the early leaders of MMA originally envisaged it has not been needed in the same way for many years.
Secondly, we have felt the need to prepare for the future by looking at reducing our running costs and exploring collaborative relationships with likeminded organisations. The Council of MMA HealthServe now believes that the work can best be carried forward by preparing for a merger with the Christian Medical Fellowship, with whom we have had an extremely long and productive relationship over many years. CMF aims to meet the professional and spiritual needs of its members, as well as mobilising and supporting them in missionary service. So it seemed natural that the two organisations should merge – maintaining the multidisciplinary aspect of MMA HealthServe’s work within CMF’s membership of over 4000 doctors in the UK and its extensive links with other medical fellowships around the world.
We look ahead to 2004, to a time where the work that has been ongoing for over 125 years will continue under a new umbrella with some of the same faces and many new ones. It will be a time of great transition but also, under God, one of great expectation. We are thankful to the Lord, to our staff and to all our faithful supporters for all that is accomplished for His Glory through MMA HealthServe.
Howard Lyons
August 2003
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
It is sometimes tempting to think that in God’s Kingdom there is no change; that what was still is, and what is ever more shall be. But while that may be true of certain unchanging aspects of God’s character and His Covenant with us, everything else is far from static.
At a conference I attended in Vancouver in June of this year, Miriam Adeney of Regent College spoke eloquently of how God loves diversity and creativity – in the infinite diversity of Creation and the multiplicity of culture among humans – all speak of a God who is endlessly creative. More to the point, He invites us to join in the creativity with Him. In our humble way, I hope that we have joined in that creativity in our work over the past year here at the HealthServe office.
One of the major changes has been the evolution of our website at www.healthserve.org into a database driven, searchable information resource, including details of vacancies and opportunities for health professionals in mission, an archive of articles from our various publications over the last eight years, and a new database of healthcare and medical mission resources, links and contacts in the Healthserve Pages (as reported in the last edition of our magazine). We have also now set up a series of email alerts that people can sign up for on the site, giving details of events, courses, vacancies for health professionals in mission agencies, and updates on elective reports.
Also recently published on our website and in hard copy is ‘Elective Life Support’, an eight week cycle of readings and scriptural meditations for students taking electives in mission hospitals and other developing world settings.
Other developments have included new on-line elective resources and short-term mission opportunities sections (which, along with the HealthServe Pages are available in hard copy from the office). We have also produced a CD-ROM (‘Developing Health’) based on the course content of the Residential Refresher Course.
GENERAL ACTIVITY
A significant part of our day-to-day activity in the office is dealing with requests from health professionals, students, churches and mission agencies. Increasingly these are coming to us by email and from our website questionnaire (51% and 33% respectively).
Overall in 2003, up to the end of August we have dealt with 473 individual requests – a third (33%) from students enquiring about elective placements.
To the end of August 2003 we had given 30 elective grants – somewhat down on last year (total grants given = 62). Our aim had been to see 125 students supported in the course of 2002/2003 – and we still aim to support that many students in the long run, but we also recognise that there are many factors slowing down the number of students taking electives in the developing world (more on this later in this report). 27% of all enquiries were from professionals wanting help and advice about working overseas in mission, 16% from indigenous missions, churches and hospitals looking to find networks and partnerships or looking for funding, and 24% were general enquiries for information, resources and advice.
On average, we are dealing with around fourteen enquiries a week. This excludes the enquiries that come through to the CMF office, which are dealt with there by our Medical Director. In many ways, the merger with CMF is likely to show a marked increase in the amount of activity we deal with daily as a team.
These figures are encouraging – while there may be difficulties in getting long-term healthcare staff to work in mission, and this remains a big issue, but there is no real diminution of interest in working overseas among Christian health professionals.
ANNIVERSARY
As you will have read, we held our 125th anniversary celebration and mini-conference at Oak Hill College this summer, during the middle weekend of the Residential Refresher Course. Previous editions of the magazine have outlined in more depth the history of the MMA over these 125 years, but it is encouraging to see how in the third century in which we have existed as an organisation, the needs for and interest in mission remain as acute as ever. That there were as many (if not more) students and younger qualified health professionals as older or retired workers at the conference speaks volumes to me again of how much there is still a passion and a calling among the younger generations to respond the Great Commission.
That we have seen a fall of in attendees at elective days and some other events is not reflected in a down turn in interest in mission (as our activity statistics have shown) – it is more a reflection of the difficulties and obstacles put in the way of the younger generations by their courses, employers, professional bodies, and wider culture. We need to learn to help them find their ways round these obstacles rather than throw up our hands and despair, and make the all too common error of believing that the coming generation do not have what it takes. Let us be encouragers and enablers rather than discouragers and naysayers.
OFFICE
After nearly four years based here in the historic heart of the East End of London, we are preparing to move offices to Waterloo in Central South London in December/January. Despite being impossibly hot in summer, and impossible to heat in winter, these spacious offices have served us well, providing plenty of space for meetings, storing resources, as well as being very easy to access by public transport. There are other benefits as well: in the summer, the sound of Bollywood film music filters in through the open widows, in autumn and spring the streets and people come to life to celebrate Diwali and Eid, and all year round there is the aroma of spicy cooking wafting in from the nearby council flats. Sandwiched as we are between the City of London and Canary Wharf – two of the major powerhouses of the British, and indeed global economy, this poor, largely South-Asian, Muslim community sits like an island apart, surrounded by the opulence of these financial districts. In many ways, this location has been apt reminder to us of the divided world that we seek to serve, and of the many who do not know the One who came to save that world. Waterloo will seem tame and quiet by comparison!
The last year has also seen us say goodbye to two creative and energetic team members. Rachel East, our one-time Administrator and latterly our Fundraiser left us in January to travel the world and is now working as a freelance writer for various Christian agencies. Nick Mott, who re-designed and expanded our website, database and other IT systems has moved on as well, going back with his wife to work in Turkey with Operation Mobilisation.
The contributions and creative input of both these team members has been greatly appreciated, and greatly missed after their departures. Looking back over the last fifty year’s minutes of the MMA recently, I was struck by the vast number of people who have passed through the MMA in one way or another down the years, many to go on into or return to ministry overseas. It is an encouragement that we have seen many of our staff go on to bigger and better things for God after serving us faithfully. God does not promise that things will be stable, but he does promise that He will work ultimate good out of change and hardship.
THE FUTURE
Much has been and will be written elsewhere about the merger with CMF. This has been discussed and prayed over as an option many times in the last thirty years or so, but there seems a rightness to it happening at this time. There will be no immediate changes in staff – Peter, Laura and myself will continue to work together as a team within CMF, certainly for the next year or so. The website will remain, and this magazine will continue in one form or another. It is an exciting time, but also a daunting one – change is never easy, but when it is God ordained, the Holy Spirit can bring wonderful fruit out of it. Please continue to pray for the Councils and the staff teams of HealthServe and CMF over the coming transitional months.
Steven Fouch
August 2003
