Health Care Ministry Opens Door to Gospel

OAXACA, MEXICO (February 17, 2005) - Often it is the "doing" more than the "telling" of the Good News that opens doors – and hearts – as Evangelical Covenant Church missionaries know very well.

Medical care is one of those door openers for Covenant missionary Cindy Hoover who has invited a number of communities to use medicine for mission through a program called "Semillas de Salud" (Seeds of Health). Hoover has spend much time in the isthmus region of Oaxaca training local church members to do screening tests for diabetes and hypertension and to work with them on how to initiate health ministries in their own communities.

Twelve individuals currently are trained to do the testing, each establishing health ministries in their own unique contexts. She is revisiting various ministry locations this month to further the work in at least three regions with hopes of firmly establishing a preventive health care system that ministers to the body while creating new relationships and opportunities for spiritual discussion and changed hearts.

Here are some early results:

• Tehuantepec: Pastor (Carmelo Salinas) and two other individuals are offering screening twice a week and are doing home visits to those who need additional follow up care. They also are offering screening at meetings of the Women's Community Bank and at various church meetings. Nutrition seminars and helps for providing baby food, among other things, are also focus areas being considered.
• Lachivixa: A pastor and another individual were trained and are investigating how to set up a health ministry in this more remote mountain community. Networking with the local public health system is a high priority in the near future.
• Ixtepec: Seven people attended a two-day training session to learn about the possibilities of health ministry and how to do screening. "They are exploring the best way to structure their program and we'll be discussing more of this on my next visit," Hoover says.

"We're trying to call this health ministry rather than medical ministry," she said. "Health is a broader term that includes prevention and development, while 'medical' usually has more of a curative emphasis. Health includes medicine. But it's usually more of a public health and preventive emphasis. We're going for the positive of creating communities that are healthy rather than correcting what's already there."

Hoover says she saw the positive effects of the Seeds of Health ministry in one community early last fall as she helped host a work group from Harvest Ridge Covenant Church in Shawnee, Kansas. The group included several health professionals, and their work at the isthmus region of Oaxaca had a variety of components.

The Kansas mission team ran a clinic at a different area location each day, screening for diabetes, hypertension and anemia with the help of equipment donated by a hospital near Kansas City. They showed local church members how to use the equipment and made referrals to local public health systems when they discovered follow up treatments would be needed. "Many Oaxacans have diabetes and hypertension, but they have little ongoing follow up of sugar levels or blood pressure readings after they are started on medicines," Hoover notes. "So control is poor due to lack of follow up and lack of compliance with taking the medicines."

In an ideal world, Hoover thinks that she and other medical missionaries could do much more to improve health ministries in certain areas. But sometimes the resources readily available to regions aren't always ideal. Improvisation is necessary and the improvising takes on different forms in each area in which she works. She explained the dilemma with an observation gleaned from an extended period in the U.S. recovering from surgery.

"There's a cable television show in which a chef is brought unannounced to a home and has to prepare a complete meal using only what is already in the fridge and pantry, she says in illustrating her point. "I think this is a pretty good image of what we do in developmental ministry. Some communities we enter have well-stocked pantries with access to medicines and physicians and a desire to improve and to use everything wisely. Some have just a can of tuna fish and some beans.

"Some could order in food or go out and shop to make a larger selection from the pantry," Hoover continues, while "some don't even know how to cook. And others barely have corn meal and salt and sugar to start with and maybe could kill a chicken to help out. Occasionally there is nothing there, and more inputs from outside are needed. But usually, there is something to start with and then change can be brought about with success and a desire to continue on, stocking new items in the pantry, and maybe even finding ways to afford more."

A member of Bethany Covenant Church in Bedford, New Hampshire, Hoover brings a wealth of medical experience and knowledge to mission ministry. She worked at Parkland Medical Center in Derry, New Hampshire, before heading to do mission work for the Covenant in 2000. She served in similar fashion in Kansas City, Kansas, while an assistant professor in pediatrics at two schools in the mid-1980s. She earned a Doctor of Medicine from the University of the Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania and also has a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

But don't get the idea Hoover isn't about the spiritual aspects, too – she earned a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from Central Baptist Seminary in Kansas City. She's convinced that the seeds of health she plants through the field of medicine will ultimately sprout seeds of hope in a spiritual realm, quickly pointing out that a great portion of the ministry of Jesus was spent addressing health and quality of life issues as they pertain to faith in Him.

"Always I am trying to help keep 'Word' and 'Work' combined as they (local pastors and leaders) understand what they are doing as a proclamation of God's love and care, and the care of the church for their local community," Hoover says.

To learn more about Hoover and the ministries in her region, email her at cjhoover@prodigy.net.mx.

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