Ecuador (MNN)–Healthcare is a key component of HCJB World Radio’s vision for ministry.
Dr. Richard Stitcher is the newly appointed Director General of Hospital Vozandes in Quito, Ecuador. He says healthcare can be one means of carrying the Gospel into a region, particularly in areas of the world where typical missionary activities are not acceptable.
This year that became acutely evident as three relief teams from Ecuador traveled to Indonesia and then Pakistan following natural disasters in those areas.
An HCJB medical team was first onsite in Nias Island, Indonesia, to provide emergency medical care following a devastating earthquake.
In the fall of 2005 HCJB World Radio, in partnership with SIM International, sent two teams to a remote area of Pakistan to help victims of the October 8th earthquakes which left tens of thousands dead. Four members of the teams to Pakistan were Ecuadorians who work at Hospital Vozandes-Quito.
Those response projects birthed a new vision. “We are in the process of establishing what’s called a ‘mobilization center’ here in Quito.”
Training in healthcare is specialized, and the workers sometimes need a little guidance as to how better to blend their faith and their vocation. Stitcher, again, “Our desire is to bring those who have a desire to be trained in mission work, with a healthcare background to prepare them in biblical studies, missiology, as well as to give them a greater area of expertise in different portions of medicine to prepare them to be sent out.”
That vision is echoed by International Healthcare Coordinator Sheila Leech. She sums it all up by saying, “God has allowed us 50 years to work and learn in Ecuador. Now it’s time to move out and provide integral care and healing to the nations.”
