Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Autumn 2013 | Page 29
perceptions about Christians and God are slowly changing. Eden
describes their work as “clearing the land, getting the field ready.”
While Eden works in healthcare, Shane, a graduate of Moody
Bible Institute with a B.A. in missiology, focuses his efforts on
community development. With other members of their team, they
try to get to know every family in their village. “Little by little, they
see our hearts,” says Eden. Despite the villagers’ distrust of Western
influence, one family allowed the team to drive their son to a clinic
for treatment. The boy’s finger was infected after an accident with
a machete, and the missionaries feared the infection might reach
his bones. Though the boy lost that finger, his hand and arm were
saved—and trust for the missionaries grew.
Another young woman was constantly battling severe malaria.
With Eden’s encouragement to treat her earliest symptoms and to take
medications in a pill form regularly at home rather than traveling so
often to the clinic for I.V. treatment, the young woman’s body steadily
strengthened. Today she is rarely sick.
The couple’s work in the village seeks to help not only each whole
person—body, mind, and spirit—but also the entire community.
“It’s about showing people that faith affects every part of life,” Eden
explains. She believes some of their neighbors now really long to
follow God, as they begin to ask, “Does God have a plan for our
village?”
Abraham ’01 and Molly Smith ’01
Abraham and Molly [not their real names], a health educator and a
schoolteacher, currently serve among immigrants and refugees in a
community near Detroit with the largest concentration of Muslims in
the United States. They began their ministry, with a head start from
MedSend, in a Muslim-majority country in western Africa.
“Even while I was an undergraduate, I consulted with MedSend
about financial decisions, budgeting, and insurance,” says Abraham.
His internship for a master’s in public health took him to West
Africa, where he helped evaluate and improve a health education
program and launch a children’s nutrition pilot program in a severely
malnourished community. The missionaries sought to equip
communities to meet their own health and nutrition needs in a
sustainable way. Abraham observed how micro-enterprise bettered
the lives of families by granting them access to improved plows,
mosquito nets, and other items too costly for many to purchase in
a lump sum.
Abraham and Molly returned to that same country within two
years after Abraham finished his degree. There Abraham helped
disciple a new believer who would later become a leader among
Christians coming from a Muslim background. He also helped
disciple the first person from a certain unreached people group to
trust Christ in that region—a man with whom Abraham had shared
his faith during his earlier, short-term service. But Abraham and
Molly’s deepest thrill came from their part in assisting their Muslim
house helper to entrust her life to Christ. They loved seeing
her enthusiastically share the good news with her family.
Regarding their time in West Africa, Molly says, “God taught us
through great hardship the most important lesson of our lives. His
deep love not only for the lost, but also for us is apart from what we
could offer him or how well we ‘succeed.’ He was doing something so
much greater than the small contribution he allowed us to have.”
Karla Torres Psy.D. ’07
Intent on integrating her faith into the practice of psychology and
promoting the cause of the underserved, Karla Torres Psy.D. ’07 chose
Wheaton’s graduate program in psychology because her goals lined up
precisely with those of the program.
Her coursework soon led her to Chicago’s Lawndale Christian
Health Center, where there was need for a bilingual psychologist. She’s
been there ever since—about six years.
“I probably couldn’t be here witho ut the help of MedSend and
the legacy of the consortium [the Chicago Area Christian Training
Consortium, started by a group of Wheaton Psy.D. alumni],” she says.
Early on, she was assigned to counsel a pastor who had left his
ministry because of an addiction and marital crisis. “Addiction is one
of the more challenging problems to treat, and I was still a ‘rookie.’
But both that patient and I experienced God’s power and grace in
weakness,” says Karla.
“After an appropriate period of successful recovery, he returned with
his wife for marital counseling. God continued the healing. I saw his
transforming hand over this couple.” Free from addiction and restored
to his family, this pastor has returned to ministry and has even come
in to pray for Karla. “It was God’s work come full circle in both of our
lives,” says Karla.
Two years ago, when Karla accepted the post of director of
behavioral health at Lawndale, she prayed that God would use her
to provide more young doctoral students with similar training
opportunities and mentoring that would encourage them to provide
care for the underserved. At that time, there were only five clinicians
working at four sites in the Lawndale ministry. Today six licensed
clinicians, seven doctoral-level students, and one undergraduate
student work in the program. “It’s so important to communicate
the vision early so that the young develop a desire to serve—crossculturally or among the marginalized.
“When I feel myself weary under the weight of endless needs, I am
renewed by remembering that others have forged the way for me,” says
Karla, referring in part to MedSend, which has alleviated the burden
of her student loans.
Dr. Dan Fountain passed away in February 2013, but his idea
continues to launch Wheaton’s graduates—and many others—into
effective ministries in the U.S. and around the globe.
To learn more about MedSend, visit medsend.org.
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