Category: Health

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12.

My wife and I are part of a mission agency that has seeks to address not just our sin and alienation from God, but also the effects of sin in the communities we serve. When we went to the southern Ethiopia town of Arba Minch in the late 1980s we expected not to just be involved with the hospital and ministry of health, but also with the church and community health. I had a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins and had trained as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control; I thought I must be pretty well prepared. But I was not adequately prepared for the challenges we faced; my preparation in fact was just beginning.

My hope for a bright and successful community health outreach to poor communities, spearheaded by Ethiopian churches, never materialized during our five year effort. We did many good things, taught Scripture, saw patients, advised when possible at the health department. But I was not prepared for the dual challenge of orienting the church outwards (to the community needs) and also for the entrenched cultural beliefs and misunderstandings about health. It was like my shiny new program was just stuck in the mud.

In retrospect, the churches was not ready for a full-blown embrace of their broken communities, since they were just surviving under communism themselves. And my brilliant ideas for change were great except I understood far too little of my Ethiopian brothers and sisters, and far too little of myself. In the final analysis, after we left the country, the believers did develop robust and full-orbed community programs which showed the love of God to neighbors. Perhaps we planted a few seeds of change.

Hope can be lost when expectations are dashed. Trust can be lost in the process as well, and that too was in poor supply towards the end of our Ethiopia experience — mostly because of my own frustrations.

So where did my expectations fall short? Where was my ‘hope deferred,’ making my heart sick? Here’s a list of some of my expectations, now with 35 years of hindsight:

  • “My program should work.”
  • “We will be fully supported by leadership (church and mission).”
  • “The believers will know and embrace what we want to change.”
  • “Since we’ve made the sacrifice to be here, God will work things out for us.”
  • “This will be fulfilling.”
  • “Opposition? How could any one want to oppose this good stuff?”

These expectations were not clearly formulated in my mind, so I didn’t realize that they were a kind of musical score I was singing off of. They provided a framework by which I saw the work. In the end the Lord set the work, the frame, and the score were all aside. My heart was sick, but over time the Lord enabled me to see some of my own folly, lay aside my perspective and seek His.

The Lord does not just send us around the world for the work we might do, but for the work He is doing in us. As we learn from Him and change from the inside, God Himself can use these very changes to work powerfully in the lives of those around us. And that is what happened. As we continued and even grew in His grace, He was working both in us and in our Ethiopian colleagues. In the end He taught us — through the same Ethiopian believers — wonderful lessons of patience, grace and prayer. And in His time he has begun to use them to transform the same communities.

So our own frustrations, conflicts and challenges can be a source of anger, burnout and brokenness for us. Or they can be a source of renewed hope and confidence, as we get back to the basics of God’s Word – and the work He wants to do in us, not only through us. He is accomplishing His work in history and uses us as medical and public health professionals. But it is His kingdom not ours. Not our program but His progress. Not even our timing but His.

So, how about you? Can’t find the joy in the calling He has placed you in? Watch where your hope is founded. Examine your expectations and suppositions. Ultimately He does His work of healing in His way, embracing communities but also working to change hearts. His work of grace, not ours.

How unhealthy is the world?

Surprisingly, we are not as unhealthy as one might guess. A graphical representation of the state of our world over the last two centuries has been prepared by Max Roser, an economist at the University of Oxford.  Take a look at falling rates of child mortality, a sensitive indicator of overall community health.  The progress, especially in the last half-century, has been astounding.

Of course health does not improve in a vacuum. The dramatic reduction in rates of extreme poverty and rise in basic education have much to contribute to health. The rise in democracy in parts of the world promotes the flow of ideas, collaboration and creativity.

Roser points out that it is ever more astounding that these rates have improved despite a dramatic rise in the population of the world during the same period.  Wealth has actually been created during this time; the economies of the world have grown and even overtaken the rise in population. When I was younger there was a great fear that a rising population would mean less for each person (the so called “lifeboat theory”).  God has created man and the world in such a way that we have the potential to create and distribute wealth. It is not a ‘zero-sum game.’

It is hard to appreciate how well off many of us are compared to our great great grandfathers and mothers.  In those days (and even in some impoverished communities today), under-five’s mortality rates could approach 50% of all children born.

As Christians this kind of presentation helps to focus our action!  Caring for the poor and marginalized means we go after that 10% in extreme poverty.  They may be hard to reach, sometimes suffer from oppression and violence beyond what we can imagine, including war, violence at home, and all types of deprivation.  As Christian health professionals it is our privilege to lay aside our desire for comfort and wealth, and serve those who Jesus referred to when he said, “I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (Matthew 25:36)

It is an encouragement to know that as believers in Christ we can join with good people all over the world in order to press on in this battle for those who less well off than ourselves.  That sense of direction gives Christian healthcare a distinctive impulse, since we care about people made in God’s image, body, soul and spirit.

 

 

 

“We all sat at the same table.”

 

When resources are scarce and medical professionals are few, one gets overwhelmed with the physical needs of patients needing care.  Emotional, spiritual and community care seem like a luxury.  Yet the challenge is how to make a long range impact in these communities.  Here is an example from the Hopkins Medicine journal which shows how one group of professionals brought patients and community to ‘the same table’ – and thus began to discuss deeper issues.

After trying to engage women in breast cancer screening through a local church, these medical professionals felt like failures; only two women signed up. Lesson 1. Short term outreach which does not involve the community from the start has limited long term impact.

Despite their disappointment, they asked for feedback from the church, and were invited to a monthly meeting. “Someone stood up and said, ‘Doc, no one wants to be a patient.'” Being a patient was perceived as a burden, and the outreach was thus an invitation to become a burden.  “It was a hard lesson,” the author concluded, “that picking up medical services and dropping into a neighborhood without taking into account the communities priorities, stuggles, or having trust — that’s a formula for failure.”  Lesson 2. Our best intentions may be perceived very differently than we intend, and we must be humble enough to receive feedback from the community’s perspective.  (Think about short term medical missions; how often do we proceed with our own agenda?)

The author and his colleagues modified their approach to emphasize “knowing the science, knowing the patient and knowing the community.”  They launched an organization called “Medicine for the Greater Good,” to engage the socioeconomic determinants of health. Through this organization they created community partnershps which included not only the patients at risk but churches, schools, City Hall and health department — all sitting at the same table.  “We discovered that somewhere along our long journey as doctors, we had come to viewhealth as synonymous with medicine: prescriptions, research, guidelines. But for the community, health was more than feeling well.  Health is jobs. Health is providing for one’s family. Health is going to church and going to the park. Health is a sense of purpose.”   Lesson 3. One of the biggest obstacles to long term community transformation is our own misunderstanding of health!

Read the results of their discussions and the fulfillment they began to find.  How do we translate these lessons into health ministry motivated by the love of God and the good news of salvation through Jesus?

  1. Link short term outreach to long term engagement with the community, not an approach driven by one-on-one patient care.  Love demands that we think from both perspectives.
  2. Spend time with the community, not just with the patients that come from the community. This means actually getting out to know community members in their own homes, neighborhoods, churches and places of worship. It means getting meaningful feedback about how we are perceived. Our best intentions may not communicate the love we intend to show.
  3. We must change our minds about health. Health is not just meeting physical needs – but transforming community.  Most of the determinants of health are matters which the good news of Jesus addresses  — such as anger, sexual immorality, greed, guilt and shame.  Our role as health providers is not only to provide relief where we can, but to journey with our patients and community as Jesus builds His kingdom in their midst.  Jesus provides forgiveness of sin and relief from of the shackles that often lead to poverty and ill health.   The good news of the gospel provides meaning even when suffering cannot be fully alleviated.  As Christian health providers let’s not just be caught up in our useful activities, but also learn to sit at that table with the communities in which we serve.

 

Love in action

In SIM we think a lot about how to integrate faith and good deeds. In our Western mindset these are often separate.

One of our missionaries returned home this week and told us that in her country, Christian medical doctors put “faith” and “work” in separate categories.  So it is difficult for them to imagine how to keep them together.

Jesus healed people physically but also ministered to their souls. He knew when to show love and he knew when to speak the words of God to people.  The ministered to the whole man; there was no separation of faith and work.

One unifying theme that runs through all of Jesus life and ministry is love. John tells us that “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God.”  Jesus life was motivated by the love of God and love for people. Ultimately His death the cross was the supreme evidence of that love — rescuing us from eternal suffering for sin, and also restoring us to right relationships with God and others. The cross integrates faith and work.

My missionary friend invited another experienced visiting missionary doctor to a lunch meeting where he was asked by younger Christian doctors, “how can you imagine us bringing faith into the chaos of this urban hospital?”

“Remember those patients we saw lying on the floor this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

“Do you think any of them might appreciate prayer?”

“Well, yes,” they replied again.

“How can we find a way, in your cultural context, to love them enough that they would might invite you to pray for them?”

It was the beginning of a journey to bridge that gap between ‘faith’ and ‘work.’  Or more precisely, it was a call to really look into the eyes of individual patients and families and see them as made in the image of God, not just as people with physical needs.

Jesus leads us to do this because of His love for people. He wants them to know love, since it powerfully communicates who He is, and also opens up opportunities to know Him though words that also come from Him.

 

Sustainable church hospitals

A little publication in 1998 surveyed 43 church-related mission hospitals to identify criteria for sustainability.  They identified nine critical success factors in the process:

  1. Vision/mission/objectives. These hospitals had a Christ-centered vision that had been translated into ‘do-able’ mission statements and behavioral objectives to guide board and staff members at all levels in their day to day work. They were actively revisited at induction training sessions, retreats and other meetings.
  2. Visionary governance. There was appropriate representation of various stakeholders, availability of the range of expertise needed, and availability of the experience required to set up policy guidelines to help the institution in business dealings, etc.
  3. Dynamic technical and managerial leadership. Careful selection of managers and supervisors was reinforced by training, nurtured by prayer, and tested on a continuing basis by application at work. The board showed active interest and demanded accountability at reasonable and regular intervals. These leaders, in their daily interaction with people at all levels and all classes of society, demonstrated commitment to Christian values and determination to live them in words and actions. (Hurrah!)
  4. Reputation for quality of care. These hospitals had a long standing reputation for excellent care in their particular areas of expertise. In many cases this reputation was built by missionary doctors and related staff many decades ago but had been maintained by successors, and continues to serve as a magnet and beacon for patients.  This boosted outpatient visits to an optimum of about 150 per day and filled beds to at least 60 percent capacity; this in itself appears to enhance survival.
  5. Adequate quantity, quality and stability of staff.  These hospitals had adequate numbers of well-trained staff, especially in the strongest specialties. This generated patient confidence. Innovative strategies to reward and retain staff appear very important. Ensuring local access to quality education for staff children was also vital.
  6. Solid financing and financial administration. Key characteristics of the ‘successful’ hospitals were the capacity to generate good revenue, atract local funds and external donations and grants, disburse them wisely, and account for them consistently with generally accepted financial practices. This earned them confidence with stakeholders, patients, governments and donors.
  7. Viable location. Some were in urban areas and able to have clientele who earned money, and others were in rural areas where local people lived near active markets, making incomes reasonable to sustain the hospitals and still serve those who were not able to pay.
  8. Church commitment to health ministry. Possibilities of sustainability were greatly enhanced in situations where churches had inherited hospitals from missionaries but had made firm commitments to to operate them, drawn up clear policies and made it a priority to provide for them financially and materially. Such churches expected to be net contributors to the hospitals, seeing them as part of their Christian outreach or mission. Churches which viewed ‘their’ hospitals as a source of income, taking money out of them whenever possible, tended to be less successful.
  9. Government policies conducive toward private providers. Sustainability was improved when governments made provision for selected para-pubic institutions such as church hospitals to be integrated into the national health network of services, while leaving the churches free to make their own capital development and administrative policies. In these situations, the governments made substantial recurrent-cost contributions to the hospitals concerned, thereby decreasing their running costs and making them more viable.

In planning for successful handover from foreign (or mission) ownership to local, these success criteria can give us a helpful roadmap. Although one may not be able to do much about changing the location of a hospital, plans can develop leadership for many other aspects, such as:

  • Maintaining a Christ-centered vision for ministry
  • Careful attention and planning for good governance
  • Development of leadership both on the technical managerial side as well as the clinical side of services
  • Planning for staff development, including attention to all of life (relational, spiritual and family — even education of children!)
  • Solid financial systems and accountability
  • Developing church leadership which knows Scripture well and can embrace ministry of Word and deed, without neglecting either one. (For centuries the church has been active in giving sacrifically to serve the poor).
  • Advocating with government on policy or larger country-wide issues, especially when it comes to caring for the marginalized and brokenhearted — see Isaiah 61:1)

Community based approaches to primary health care

When I studied international and community health at Johns Hopkins in 1977, primary health care was a new emphasis. Our dean, Dr. Carl Taylor led a department full of passion about reducing illness and promoting health through primary care. But the amount of data about this approach was limited. Like many others, I found that the dream was charming, but not so easily implemented when I went to Ethiopia.

So I was encouraged to hear that now there are over 700 studies in the medical literature which support community based primary health care. Dr. Henry Perry and others at Johns Hopkins have published their findings in the Journal of Global Health here.

The evidence supports CBPHC as an important component of a comprehensively-designed maternal and child health program, not just for the direct effects on maternal and child morbidity and mortality, but because of its contribution to appropriate usage of hospital and clinic facilities. In other words, we need a balance of curative, preventative and promotive.  The evidence is clear.

Here are some aspects of CBPHC:

  • Engagement of women’s groups
  • Innovation like puppet shows
  • Paid and unpaid local workers and volunteers
  • Strengthening the staff of peripheral health centers
  • Using both medical professionals and non-professionals in complementary ways
  • Regular home visits
  • Community based case management
  • Mobile teams

Dr. Perry points out that belief in curative medicine is very powerful; sometimes we are mesmerized by technology and curative care. While they have a very important place, we also know that a large percentage of illness can be mitigated, prevented or treated by non-medical means. We want to embrace good clinical care, of course, but balance this with sustained and intentional efforts to impact communities in broader, more ‘non-technical’ ways. CBPHC may not be technologically sophisticated, yet it can be powerful.

In terms of social justice, Perry points out the CBPHC can have a ‘pro-equity’ effect, avoiding the potential barriers to health care that institutions by themselves can have.

As we make disciples in our healthcare missions, let us remember to raise up both medical professionals and non-professionals, staff who work in institutions as well as those who work in communities.  With needs pressing in around us, we must keep hospitals functioning well yet not consume all of our resources on them — but balance clinical care (tertiary and secondary care) with community based primary health care. We need not only doctors, but social workers, health promoters, and grandmothers who are willing to make the sacrifice to love and invest in communities in order to bring healing to the brokenhearted and hope to those suffering around us.

If we are outsiders to a culture (expats or missionaries) we shouldn’t be naive about the difficulty of such an approach. It often touches on deeply held values, dreams, and cultural approaches which are distorted by our own rebellion from God and the ways of His kingdom. But as we love individuals and learn to serve side-by-side in humility with local people, we can discover how great is our Lord Jesus and enable many to find fullness of life in Him.

What should characterize public health done by Christians?

Public health skills are powerful tools to promote flourishing of communities; they complement medical care of individuals.  Christians also want to promote human flourishing, since this demonstrates the goodness of God.  What will characterize public health done by Christians?

Some of the ancients were inclined to treat disease and plagues in terms of supernatural forces and magic, shamanism and religious practices. The Hebrews stressed regulation of personal and community hygiene, isolation of lepers and other ‘unclean conditions,’ and family and personal sexual purity; God gave to Moses commands related to a weekly day of rest, limits on slavery and oppression, sanitation and food regulations.  The children of Israel gave to the world the teaching concerning human dignity since all are made in the image of God.

Modern public health is a noble sphere of human endeavor, whether done by Christians, Muslims or Secular modernists. Good public health practice should be characterized not only by good science but love for humankind. Christians are especially motivated by the value of human beings, as well as God’s command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We glorify God by seeking His best for our fellow human beings.

At the same time, modern public health – Jenner and vaccination, Snow on cholera, germ theory, bacteriologic revolution, hospital reform, immunology, the development of epidemiology – has grown up as part of the modern scientific revolution and out of Enlightenment thinking.  It is often characterized by a ‘split’ of sacred and secular, and a peculiar perspective that things ‘scientific’ define reality whereas things of God are confined to personal and private belief. I believe this is an inadequate foundation for public health as it tends to relegate ethical and moral matters to a private and subjective world.

As Christians we have much we can learn from our public health teachers, and much to give in order to alleviate the suffering of this world.  But ultimately our motivation for doing public health is to demonstrate the character of Jesus Christ to the world; we cannot bring utopia to this world but we can point to a Savior who cares about men and women – body and spirit. He is the Savior who not only frees us from our sinful selves but also frees us for His purposes in a world which He has made and is in the process of re-creating.

As a Christian epidemiologist, I will use the techniques of case control studies, disease surveillance and risk identification just the same as anyone else. The tools are the same, whatever our faith orientation. Our desired outcome – disease prevention and health promotion – will be the same; public health professionals seek the best for others.  Christian public health is not just public health done by Christians; it becomes activities, programs, policy and advocacy informed by God’s Word – which commands us to ‘love justice, seek mercy, and walk humbly with.. God.” (Micah 6:8)

A Christian perspective on public health and human flourishing will be informed not only by material success, but also by an understanding of the darker forces we face, including suffering and death. It will seek to address these matters with courage and meaning. A Christian perspective on public health can deal with life well because of the hope God offers in His promises in both life and death. The cross of Jesus Christ has won the victory of sin, darkness and rebellion in order to usher in life here and eternally.

Ultimately health is not an achievement of man but a blessing of God. And He is working in the world to bless the world through His Son Jesus Christ, who gave His own life for the ultimate in public health – salvation from sin, rescue from darkness and oppression, and the freedom of a life of love and grace.

Why health is more than medical care

Why is health more than just medical care?  Here are some reasons:

  1. Medical care tends to address matters of the body but not of the spirit. As medical professionals we are trained to diagnose, treat and manage medical conditions. We seek to apply scientific evidence to our craft.  And yet health is something more than science, scopes and surgery.  The best doctors and nurses treat the person, not just the disease.  Illness is not just chemistry and biology; it includes the non-material aspects of existence, such as meaning, dignity and reconciliation.
  2. Health is an outcome of many complex factors, not just medicine. These include things like nurture, nutrition, good housing, healthy relationships.  The reduction in deaths from infectious diseases in the West, for example, was mostly due to non-medical factors, not antibiotics.  Again, the evidence is that the best correlation with worldwide infant mortality is the educational level of the mother. Those who want to improve health of populations must think beyond individual care to the social and enviornmental determinants of disease.  Health is more than just medical care.
  3. Ultimately health is not ‘controlled’ by any one discipline or profession. As health professionals we have a fairly narrow focus – to treat or manage conditions in individual patients.  But health — since is is more than the absence of disease but the well-being of people — results from more than our medical tools.  Smoking, gun violence, human traffiking, poverty, inadequate vitamin A in the soil, deforestation, natural disaster — all contribute to human suffering and poor health!
  4. Health is about dignity, not just treatment. While excellent medical treatment is essential, not all conditions are curable, and some remain fatal. Even when we can’t cure or treat, our work must sill say, “You are a person. You are made in the image of God!” Restoring dignity must be part our motivation.  We are not treating machines, but human beings. Too often in our bio-psycho-social disease model we think mostly about physical treatment.
  5. Ultimately, health is a blessing of God, who created the body and also gave it tremendous powers of healing.  The tagline at a mission hospital in Chiang Mai, Thailand reads, “We treat. Jesus heals.”  We have the privilege to serve in medicine in humble ways to alleviate suffering; but in the end it is our Lord and Creator who gets the glory.

I welcome hearing about your reasons for thinking beyond medical care to health.

A new era in Roman healthcare

We take for granted that compassion is a natural response to the suffering of those who are ill. But compassion was not well-developed as a virtue in Roman culture.  Rome had not developed a culture of compassion; “mercy was discouraged, as it only helped those too weak to contribute to society.” Family members may come to one’s aid, and the wealthy could afford physicians, but “the common folk were often left to rely on folk healers and sellers of herbs, amulets and quack remedies.” *

“If a father decided that the family couldn’t afford another child, that child would be abandoned to the steps of a temple or in the public square. Female infants were exposed much more often than males.” These attitudes and practices are still with us today.  In India and China the practice of aborting female offspring is distressingly common.  In many parts of the world the handicapped are treated with disdain or neglect.

“The classic world possessed no religious or philosophical basis for the concept of the divine dignity of human persons, and without such support, the right to live was granted or withheld by family or society almost at a whim.”

What made the difference between attitudes then and now?  At least in many parts of the world today, human rights and dignity are considered absolutely fundamental (and they are!). Where then did these more ‘progressive’ beliefs come from?  The new ‘era’ in Roman healthcare came from the least likely place: from a new, small and persecuted culture which penetrated the classic Roman world: the culture of the Christians.

Despite a series of ten devastating persecutions, beginning with Nero in AD 64, Christians “carried on an active ministry of philanthropy which included the care of the sick. Far from the stereotype of shriveled ascetics who hated the body, early Christians valued the body and the medical arts necessary to heal it as good gifts from God.”

“James defines “religion that is pure and undefiled before God” in part as caring for ‘orphans and widows’ (James 1:27) — biblical shorthand for all those without protectors and in need. Christian theology thus birthed a personal and corporate charity which surpassing any previously known. Church leadership encouraged all Christians to visit the sick and help the poor, and each congregation also established an organized ministry of mercy.”

How different this is from our practices today!  How often we are concerned about ourselves without hearing the Lord’s commands to love God with all our heart and our neighbors as ourselves.

“A devastating epidemic began in 250 AD and spread across northern Africa to the Western Empire.  It lasted 15 to 20 years, and at one point in Rome 5,000 people died in one day. Beyond offering supplications to the gods for relief, public officials did nothing to prevent the spread of the disease, treat the sick, or bury the dead. This is not surprising, since the pagans believed that nothing effective could be done in a time of plague other than appeasing the gods.”  However in places like Carthage, north Africa, where the plague swept in with force, the Bishop Cyprian  “encouraged Christians to donate funds and volunteer their service for relief efforts, making no distinction between believers and pagans.”  They continued these organized emergency relief efforts for five years.

“The ministry of medical care in early Christianity began as a church-based diaconal, not a professional, ministry.  It was provided by unskilled, ordinary people with no medical training. Yet the church created in the first two centuries of its existence the only organization in the Roman world that systematically cared for its destitute sick.”

This is not a secret we want to keep from believers around the world today.  From Syria to Thailand, believers are caring for those who are marginalized and ill.  But sometimes I fear we forget our history, and we forget God’s command to love our neighbor.  Medical missions are a wonderful calling and ministry. But as we go about it we must not ‘overly professionalize’ ministry to those who are sick and brokenhearted. Unskilled believers ushered in a new era of healthcare in the Roman empire.  We have the opportunity to do the same among multiplied countries around the world, demonstrating goodness and grace of God, and the dignity of men and women created in His image.  This can be done only as professionals work together with non-medical professionals to care for the needs around them, especially those who are least able to help themselves.

Despite the cost, let’s help usher in a new era of healthcare around the world.

*Quotations are from “Christian History, Healthcare and Hospitals in the mission of the church,” Issue 101, pages 6-12

A cheerful heart is good medicine

In medical school I learned that the death of a spouse is a risk factor for one’s death, and many times the surviving spouse dies near an anniversary of the sad event. The connection between our soul and body is closer than we can imagine. The book of Proverbs says it this way: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22).

Increasingly science is recognizing the intimate connections between the heart and the body. A crushed spirit dries up the bones. Brokeness can be emotional, relational or spiritual; whatever the cause, it impacts the body. It can a factor resulting in high blood pressure, anxiety, cardiovasular disease, autoimmune disorders, cancer, etc.  All of these things have multiple causes (genetic, environmental, and so on) but the condition of the spirit is a vital factor.

Modern medicine has brought us some marvelous physical interventions, from drugs to CT scans. And while we are grateful for these, we must not overlook the effect the heart can play.  All of us in general practice have seen cheerful hearts which bring healing, and crushed spirits that dry up bones.

I’ve seen nurses literally bring patients back to health by the care they demonstrated to the sick. On the other hand I have witnessed others who see their role as a job more than a service of love. Love becomes a powerful medium for healing. “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news brings health to the bones.” (Prov 15:30).  What a privilege to see health professionals who give not just technical help, but sacrificial love.

Where does one get such a cheerful heart? Ultimately the source is not in ourselves, but in knowing the sacrifice which God has made for us in history. The objective fact is that Jesus Christ came to earth to give His life for our sin and rebellion, rising to offer hope and new life.  This Easter week we are celebrating not just the idea of resurrection, but the historical fact of the resurrection of the Son of God.

That kind of cheer just doesn’t go away.