After participating in 10 medical missions projects — from Southeast Asia to Ukraine to the jungles of Peru — Larry Wallin knows all the reasons Christian doctors give for not going on missions trips.
Some are valid; others are lame (or unbiblical) excuses, he said.
A 50-year-old pediatrician and neonatologist, Wallin has offered some of the excuses himself. But God keeps telling him to go.
A member of First Baptist Church, Montgomery, in Montgomery Baptist Association, Wallin led a workshop called Championing Medical Missions Strategy in Your Church during the Global Medical Alliance mobilization conference at the International Mission Board’s (IMB) International Learning Center in Rockville, Va.
The July 16–22 conference connected IMB health-care missionaries with some 200 Southern Baptist doctors, dentists, nurses and other medical professionals from churches across the nation.
‘God will make a way’
“One of the most effective ways I’ve seen in getting doctors involved in missions is by personal invitation,” Wallin said. “I always try to invite someone who hasn’t gone before.”
Wallin readily admits he has the luxury of working in a hospital-based practice that makes it easier for him to take time off for overseas trips. His medical partners support his missions ministry and work hard to cover for him when he’s gone. He returns the favor when they go. Many doctors and dentists in private practice face enormous financial and time pressures.
Still where there’s a willingness to serve, God will make a way. Wallin tells medical professionals not to let these eight barriers stop them from getting involved in missions.
Eight potential barriers
- Ignorance
Ignorance about missions, missionaries or how to plug into medical strategies may prevent them from becoming involved. A wealth of information is available to any medical worker interested in service, he said.
- Fear
Fear of illness, AIDS, danger, terrorism or other hazards may keep them from going. But Wallin said Psalm 31:23 says, “The Lord preserves the faithful.” Does that mean medical missionaries and volunteers never get harmed or killed? Of course not, Wallin said. But God is the Master of life and death — something Christian medical people should understand.
- Lost revenue
You cannot serve God and money. If He tells you to go, He will provide a way that doesn’t create financial havoc, Wallin said.
“You have to be practical,” he said. “Let’s say a dentist doesn’t have a lot of financial surplus and is facing the trip cost plus the time off. It might be best on that first trip to go somewhere that you can get there and get home quickly.”
- Anxiety
Medical people like to be in control, to have all the facts, Wallin said. Missions projects almost never unfold that way — and often are chaotic. But God uses the chaos for His purposes. Give Him the glory and the control, be flexible and see what He does, he said.
- Fatigue
“We have a lot of tired medical personnel in the United States,” Wallin admitted. If you know a Christian physician, dentist or nurse who has no time to take a missions trip, what can you do as a colleague, fellow church member or friend to help him or her take the plunge?
- Ethnocentricity
“Why would I want to go there?” you may be saying or thinking about the location you’ve been invited to visit as a volunteer, Wallin said. To answer that question, read your Bible, he said. Start with Acts 1:8.
- Family issues
Everyone, even career missionaries, experiences seasons of life, illnesses, children’s needs and other things that make missions service temporarily difficult or impossible. But when you are able, be available, Wallin said.
4“We have lost and needy people right here”
“OK, so when was the last time you reached out to them?” Wallin asked. You have invaluable skills as a medical professional. Don’t withhold them from God, who can use them to open doors to the neediest places on earth. (BP)
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