One of the greatest challenges in Christian mission today exists in the ‘10-40 window’ (referring to the area between 10° and 40° North of the Equator). This is where most of the world’s ‘unreached people groups’ live and the area is predominantly Muslim, as described by Martin Tansworth in his elective report.

There are many Christian organisations devoted to bringing the Good News to the world of Islam, and several internet websites including Jochen Katz’s www.answering-islam.org.uk and Jay Smith’s www.debate.org.uk. It is also worth looking at www.debate.org.uk/topics/isamasih, the homepage of Isa Masih (which means ‘Jesus the Messiah’ in Arabic), a magazine for Christian students concerned for Muslims. Another group working in the area is this Slavic Gospel Association (www.sga.org).

If you are organising your own elective then the CMF booklet 'Preparing for your Elective' is available here. There are several elective reports available in Saving Health on the Medical Missionary Association (MMA) pages. A list of missionary societies with medical work in the developing world is also available through CMF. Many of these offer short term placements.

Contraception is a recurring topic in the general field of medical ethics. As such, the CMF website has several articles on the subject. These deal with the prescription of contraceptives to the unmarried, the role of contraceptives in controlling world population and the ethics of contraception generally. (If you are looking for old Nucleus articles on a particular topic, try looking under the Ethics section - it has most articles since 1995.)

Another interesting site is the Human Life Institute (www.hli.org), which takes the stance adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.

In finishing, I would like to add that the gentleman shown on page 31 is not me. He just looks a lot like me, and I strenuously deny any assertions that I am in fact from Kazakstan.