SIM has recently partnered together with TEAM Nepal in recruitment of medical workers for several exciting medical facilities in Nepal. We feel that TEAM's vision and strategy of service in Nepal mirrors much of what SIM wants to be involved in there. Since our team so far is small on the ground, it makes sense to join forces and work together expanding the kingdom.
Some may realize that medical missions in Nepal already have a long history, but for most of this time, the primary players in medical missions were the foreign missions who came in and set up mission hospitals. Over the last five years, the Nepali church has taken on the vision of using various platforms, one of which is medicine, for missions. As the church's capacity continues to grow, Nepali Christians are taking more and more responsibility in this area. In the last year, a Christian indigenous mission organization has taken over management and operation of two former TEAM mission hospitals.
This is an exciting move but also leads some to ask, "If these hospitals have now been handed over to Nepali run organizations, why do we need to be involved still?" The answer to that is simple: Human Development and Community Services (HDCS), the indigenous mission that has taken over both TEAM hospitals, has asked TEAM to continue to partner with them in the areas of human resources and some capital expenditures over the next decade to complete the transition process to complete national control.
So, as you read through the following goals for the work in medical missions, we welcome your inquiries: 1. Continue to provide quality medical care in the tradition of mission hospitals, provide medical care with an underlying biblical ethos to the poor in remote areas of the country which still have a lack of health care. 2. To support these hospitals to be operationally self-sustainable; be able to operate these hospitals without having to rely on contributions from foreign sources. 3. To encourage these hospitals to be transformed into medical training institutions. By training, these hospitals will not only impact the students who come through Christian influence, but will also build the number of Nepali health workers in rural areas. 4. Reach Nepali medical students for Christ through daily interaction as a teacher of medicine with a biblical ethos.
We'll know the job is done when we see the self-sustaining training hospitals that are using medicine as a vehicle to build credibility among their own communities and model a holistic view of what the Gospel calls them to do.
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