Healthcare missionaries fill an incredibly important and strategic role in reaching some of the least reached people and closed-off communities in our world. Healthcare professionals are uniquely positioned to gain trust and acceptance through the practical healthcare ministry they offer, providing tangible witness of the compassion of Jesus to those they serve. This creates inroads to patients, staff, and communities where the Gospel can be shared, and lives can change.
But these missionaries have hard jobs. They face spiritual oppression, loneliness, overwhelming demands, boundary issues, and family stress. But burnout and discouragement is not inevitable. Many of the challenges and pinch points for these precious and courageous missionaries and their families are predictable, having played out frequently among those who have gone before them. There are steps that can be taken to protect and guard against some of these challenges, and to build resilience and resolve.
This is the purpose of CMDA’s Pre-Field Orientation for New Healthcare Missionaries, which has been generously supported by SWMCF for a number of years. This meeting brings together soon-to-be missionaries for four intense days of teaching, group-discussion, self-reflection, worship, and prayer. We discuss challenges like moral injury, boundaries, dealing with so much death, healthy families, education, and team dynamics. These are issues that have torn healthcare missionaries off the mission field years before they intended to leave. Our goal is to provide tools to allow the missionaries to recognize these common challenges, address them, and identity solutions and interventions when issues arise. Longer term virtual support groups, known as 5:11 Groups, have also grown out of the Pre-Field orientation as a way to provide support and encouragement to those already on the mission field.
CMDA thanks Southwestern Medical Clinic Foundation for the generous support of our efforts to help our healthcare missions colleagues and their families to not just survive, but to thrive!
