So — we’ve dedicated an entire Brigada issue to Community Health Evangelism (or CHE). [Note that in some creative-access lands, practitioners are referring to these approaches as Community Health Education.] Now it’s your turn. Have you been implementing a CHE strategy in your own field(s)? If so, what challenges and opportunities have you seen? Have you some case studies that you could share? (Feel free to change names of people and places, if it’ll provide for better security). If you could make any changes to any of the above approaches, what would you suggest? If you could give any advice to new practitioners of CHE, what advice would you give? Thanks for your feedback. Just click “Comment” below to start writing — and feel free to do so anonymously if it helps you. God bless you!!!
While I live in America, in a very developped community, there are the poor whom I serve with county government. Integrating the life of the spirit with the rest of life is looked down upon by all but the poor. Those who integrate these areas are the happiest and most successful. I have seen miracles happen in this context though, literally, though I cannot go into detail for reasons that may risk my employment and service opportunity.
Community Health Evangelism (or CHE) is what we are all about. My wife and I live in Loreto, BCS, Mexico and we have been holding Evangelistic Heal Fairs almost every month for over 8 years. It is a tremendous way to explain and demonstrate to people that God love’s them — as a total person (‘body, soul, and spirit’), and not just for eternity but in the ‘here and now’ too.
When I was a young person, many years ago, it seemed that our Christian faith was something you believed in your mind which had eternal significance… I feel that too long we as Christians generally, have separated the spiritual from the practical! And as a result people have doubted the reality of God’s love. However, Community Health Evangelism opens the door that many people have otherwise been even unwilling to approach.
In our Community Health Evangelism programs, we have Doctors and related professionals giving free consultations; we have Dentists providing free dental work for people; we give away free reading glasses and distance glasses; we have people teaching about healthy habits and nutrition from a Biblical perspective; we have a children’s program that includes games to reinforce this teaching for the children; we have videos about breast cancer, etc., etc. Everyone who comes to our Health Fairs is given a Gospel of John, and tracts of various kinds are also made available, as are New Testaments and Bibles. And, we have people on our Teams who individually counsel and pray with people.
We do not separate the Gospel presentation from the other services we provide, but rather we have taught our medical/dental professionals how to incorporate in their consultations – questions, diagnosis and advice – as it concerns their physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. The medical/dental professional then provides the service the patient came for and then asks the patient if they can pray for them; and then with their permission asks them how they can pray for them… This then often leads the patient to ask further questions about their spiritual condition, etc., etc. Such consultations often last 30-45 minutes per person; with the patient afterwards being introduced to the pastor of a nearby church, whom we have attending our Health Fairs and then he introducing the patient to others who might then spend more time with the patient the same day, or another day afterwards…
In other words, we do not have a preacher presenting the Gospel to a group of people and then asking for people to come forward for prayer, etc. Rather the Community Health Evangelism program that we have created uses a very personal and complete presentation of the Gospel – putting the patient in the seat of wanting to present their condition (physical, emotional and spiritual); allowing the doctor to draw from the patient what really are their problems (physical, emotional and spiritual); and then allowing the doctor (or other medical/dental professional) to explain to the patient what they need to do in all areas of their lives to receive God’s blessings (physical, emotional, spiritual; present and future). It’s a complete ‘soft-sell’ approach to presenting Christ to people that really works!
We put on our Health Fairs, each month in a different location of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Generally they are within a few hours drive of Loreto or La Paz, and each of these cities has an international airport. Our Health Fairs are typically held on weekends, Friday through Sunday…
And having said all of this, we would like to give an invitation to anyone who would like to join us for one of our Health Fairs – to learn how we conduct our Community Health Evangelistic events so they can do the same elsewhere, and to of course help us with our events – we can use more helpers almost every time we put on one of these Health Fairs. (And most people do not need to be able to speak Spanish to join one of our Teams; although for some positions, it is highly useful! We can also always use people who can translate English-Spanish…)
We have a couple of ‘YouTubes’ that show what we have been doing recently and they can be seen by going to:
PART ONE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srNlBKRIQUk
PART TWO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FibSEECZoJU
More information can be obtained by contacting Don & Lorraine Karsgaard at loreto.ministries@gmail.com or by going to one of our websites: http://www.mexicanmedical.com (USA) or http://www.healing-hope.com (Canada).