For many years on our medical mission teams, I have been struck by how many patients come to us with potentially preventable problems.  We have sought to include community health teaching, usually in the form of teaching while people are waiting to be seen in the clinic.  This is an advance in emphasizing preventative care but still falls short of the needs of the people we serve.  As we have sought to improve the delivery of preventive care to the people served by our partners' ministries, we have investigated a new method and have decided to begin to incorporate this in our ministry.   

Community Health Evangelism (CHE) is a holistic approach to ministry that integrates physical and spiritual ministry.  It was first developed in Uganda, East Africa in the 1980's and now is being used by 280 organizations in 90 countries around the world.  CHE integrates evangelism, discipleship and church planting with community health and development.  CHE has several foundational principles:

1. Emphasis on prevention
2. Long-term development rather than acute relief where           communities develop their own solutions
3. Community ownership enhances the dignity of the people created in God's image
4. Integration of spiritual and physical ministry
5.Transferable principles result in multiplication
6.The progress in a community becomes sustainable without dependence on outside resources
7.Transformation of  individuals through new life in Christ results in strong families, healthier communities, and newly planted churches

We are excited about the opportunity to make a long-term difference in the communities where our partners minister around the world.  CHE is a good next step for communities visited by our medical teams.  The details of the program may look different in each community, but we want the community to make it their own and meet the needs of their own people for the glory of God. 

In November I traveled to Mexico with partners German and Leticia Gomez in order to cast a vision of community health evangelism in the region.  We had been there in June with a group from First United Methodist in Clanton, AL to do medical and dental care and evangelism.  We discovered that like many places we do medical teams, there were many preventable problems in the community.  We felt like the next step in the ministry was to encourage the local church to begin a program of community health evangelism.  The first step is a vision seminar, a two day conference to introduce the concept and help us discover if a community is open to the program and to identify potential champions for the program. We met with local pastors, doctors and community officials.  We had 30 leaders for a vision casting luncheon.  This was followed by the vision seminar where 10 people came for more in-depth training.  God was gracious to bring us divine appointments and we left with a commitment from several in the community to come for further training and to bring others for the training. 

One lady who touched us was Veronica.  She came because of a desire to help her community, though she doesn't yet follow Christ.  Like many in this area, she is a cultural catholic, but not a follower of Jesus.  She said she was impressed that as we shared, we didn't try to change her religion and we weren't just there to help the Protestants. She could see that we were there to help the whole community and she was inspired to learn more about the Jesus we were sharing about.  Please pray for Veronica that she will continue to seek to learn about Jesus.  Pray that those who caught the vision will spread it in the community.  Pray for us, that we will be able to come back soon with more training so that God's light will shine in the community through CHE.

f you would like to know more, please contact me at lfrick@gointernational.org