One of my motivations in attending medical school is a desire to serve in the mission field. Many countries bar missionaries from entering their country and missionaries must enter under another occupation. To this end, I wanted an occupation with which I could make a direct visible impact to those in need and serve a need in these communities. Knowing that those in developing countries, which is a large portion of the 10-40 window, have very little access to health care and the large need for skilled medical professionals in the mission field is one of the reasons that I chose to become a physician. I am currently getting the academic training necessary to become a physician in medical school, but I was not sure how to share the gospel and specifically how I can do so in the medical mission field. This is what I hoped to learn from my GHO medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic.
During this mission trip, I served with a team of Christian physicians and dentists who took the time to teach me about their patient care approach and show me the different ways that they shared the gospel. I was able to see how each individual shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with their patients in their own personal and unique way. Even though the physicians did not speak the language of the people they were serving, many of the Haitians decided to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. I believe that this is in part due to the way that the physicians and translators showed their love in a sincere caring manner. The patients could see how much they loved them. I think this also allowed the physicians to be bold with proclaiming the gospel and showed me a way to overcome my fear of sharing the gospel.
Another lesson that I learned is that God is in control and He already has a plan for all the people that we met during this mission trip. I believe this is the reason why some of them decided to accept Jesus as their Savior while others who said they had heard the gospel several times did not, similar to the Parable of the Sower. This realization gives me confidence that if I share the love of Christ, He will take care of the rest. My fear of failure has no place in God’s plan.
