Participants:
Series Code: MTS
Program Code: MTS002105A
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00:09 The mission
00:11 of Loma Linda University Health, 00:13 urban church planting in Australia, 00:15 and a missionary family in remote Alaska 00:18 coming up next. 00:56 Hello and welcome to Mission 360. 00:57 I'm Gary Krause. 00:59 Today's program is coming to you 01:00 from the campus of Loma Linda University Health 01:03 here in California. 01:05 And on today's program, 01:06 we'll be looking at the mission of Loma Linda, 01:08 which is to continue Christ's teaching 01:11 and healing ministry. 01:13 Behind me, you'll see a commemoration of a visit 01:16 in 1905 by Ellen White, 01:19 a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 01:22 During that visit, she said, "This is the very place." 01:26 And she was referring to a vision 01:28 that she had received four years earlier, 01:30 where she had seen this land. 01:33 And this is the land where she saw a sanitarium 01:36 could be established. 01:37 Well, that was more than a hundred years ago 01:39 and the rest is history. 01:41 Loma Linda continues its mission 01:42 to prepare men and women for service around the world. 01:46 Loma Linda is known for many things. 01:48 One of which is that it's a so-called Blue Zone 01:50 where people live much longer on average 01:53 than the rest of the population. 01:55 Below me is a fitness center, 01:56 the Drayson Center which gives a free membership 01:59 to people in the community who are over 80 years of age. 02:03 They have more than 500 active members, 02:06 more than 80 years of age. 02:07 Or more about Loma Linda's mission 02:09 on today's program. 02:10 But first up, let's travel to Alaska. 02:46 Shungnak is part of the Northwest Arctic region. 02:49 A very remote area, 02:51 completely disconnect from any roads 02:54 to neighboring villages. 02:56 Meet Anthony Sherman, his wife, Irene, 02:59 and their son Hezekiah. 03:01 Tony moved to Shungnak to take a mission position 03:04 that the Alaskan Conference had been looking to fill. 03:07 My wife and I came to Shungnak 03:09 because this is where God was calling us to. 03:12 We had been doing vacation Bible school 03:14 here for some time, 03:15 and we believe that it was time for someone to move here 03:19 and it was on our hearts to do so. 03:21 When the Sherman family moved to Shungnak, 03:24 they did not have any running water 03:26 and only a wood stove to heat their home. 03:29 For the first three weeks, 03:30 they lived in the small church 03:32 and then moved into the parsonage 03:34 right next to the church. 03:37 Well, the challenge is being out 03:38 in the middle of nowhere 03:40 when you don't know anybody. 03:42 I mean, you know the people out here, 03:44 but when you don't have friends 03:47 and when you can't just get out whenever you want to, 03:52 or when I want to see my family in the Philippines, 03:54 I can't really do that, 03:55 you know, because it costs so much money to travel. 03:58 Some of the challenges that that we deal with are, 04:02 you know, the logistics, the climate, 04:05 the different struggles that are present in 04:08 in the village. 04:10 But I have my husband, my son, and I have God with me, so... 04:14 It's been a positive experience for us as well, 04:16 because we're in the center of God's will. 04:19 And to be in the center of God's will, 04:21 there is no other place to be. 04:24 Tony works at the local clinic as a healthcare provider, 04:28 along with his colleagues 04:29 he is the first to address all the health problems 04:32 and concerns of the locals in the village. 04:35 Tony and his team respond to emergencies 04:38 that range from suicides to snowmobile accidents. 04:41 If any emergency is beyond 04:43 what the local clinic can manage, 04:45 he uses a medevac plane to transport patients, 04:49 160 miles to Kotzebue. 04:53 Through his position, 04:54 Tony is able to gain 04:56 the community's trust and respect, 04:58 and he does not waste any opportunities 05:01 to connect with people. 05:03 Well, besides our work at the clinic, 05:05 besides what I do for my profession here, 05:09 we spend a fair amount of time with kids 05:11 as well as with mostly elders. 05:13 During the week on Mondays, we have a youth group 05:17 that we do for kids that are eight years and older, 05:19 and they come to our house. 05:20 Happy, happy all week 05:23 There's lots of work for me 05:26 I stand, oh Lord, on the Word of God 05:30 To be happy all week 05:34 On Tuesdays and Wednesday evenings, 05:38 we try to make it a chance to get out to people's houses. 05:40 Wednesday night, we have Bible studies 05:41 there with a family. 05:43 Thursday nights, 05:44 we usually on that particular night, 05:46 we'll take our musical instruments 05:47 and we'll go and do some singing 05:49 with usually elderly people that are in our village. 05:54 A lot of things that we do. 05:56 Sabbath, we will have Saturday school for, 05:58 you know, Sabbath school for kids. 06:00 We will try to hold adult services. 06:04 Saturday night, 06:05 we'll make a trip out to another elder's house. 06:07 You know, we try to be in people's homes 06:09 as much as possible. 06:15 The church and parsonage were built in the 1970s, 06:19 but have not had an active mission post 06:21 since the late 1980s. 06:24 For a few years, 06:25 the building has been used for vacation Bible school 06:28 by the Delta Junction Adventist Church. 06:31 Tony and Irene have been holding Bible studies 06:33 in their house 06:35 since the church is not suitable 06:37 for any fellowship during the winter months. 06:41 Our dream for this church 06:42 is that someday there would be people in it. 06:47 Right now it's not really fit for services 06:54 in the winter really or the summer. 06:56 It needs a lot of work. 06:59 And right now we have no membership. 07:00 We have no attendance, 07:01 but our dream and hope and confidence 07:04 is that God will provide us with a fellowship here. 07:16 My guest is Dr. Richard Hart, 07:18 who is the president of Loma Linda University, 07:21 Dr. Hart, thanks for joining us. 07:22 Good to be with you, Gary. 07:23 Can you please give our viewers some sort of an idea 07:26 of the size and scope of Loma Linda University? 07:30 Well, we now actually call it Loma Linda University Health 07:32 because we're one combined corporation. 07:34 We have approximately 15,000 employees, 07:37 about 4,500 students 07:39 and roughly a thousand doctors on our staff. 07:41 So that's the scope of Loma Linda. 07:43 Wow. 07:44 Now describe some of the different schools 07:46 that you have? 07:47 There's eight professional schools 07:49 in the university. 07:50 So many people think of us as medicine, nursing, 07:52 dentistry that we certainly have, 07:53 but there's also pharmacy. 07:55 One of our newer schools, 07:56 the school of behavioral health, 07:57 the school of public health, 07:59 the school of allied health professions 08:00 and the school of religion. 08:02 The religion school is actually the smallest school 08:03 by their own students, but the largest school, 08:06 because they teach all of our students. 08:08 So they teach across the entire campus. 08:09 Right. 08:10 So how would you summarize the mission, 08:13 the purpose of the institution? 08:16 I mean, we take very seriously 08:17 what we now call mission focused learning. 08:19 How do we prepare our graduates to serve the world? 08:22 And we do that in a number of ways. 08:24 We actually do a lot of community activities. 08:26 We recently started a San Bernardino campus, 08:28 and this is what we call the San Manuel Gateway College 08:31 to engage our students 08:32 with the local community issues, 08:34 to help them understand cultural and economic issues 08:36 in a disadvantaged community. 08:38 And then, of course, we leverage from there 08:39 to go abroad. 08:41 We have a program they call SIMS, 08:42 Students International Mission Service, 08:43 that now it sends about 600 students a year 08:46 to go someplace every year. 08:48 About 15% of our student body 08:50 and we continue to grow that number. 08:52 And then we have a number of programs 08:53 that label those students 08:55 to go to serve after they graduate. 08:57 We have a system set up now with endowments, 08:59 so that any Loma Linda graduate from any school, 09:02 if they want to serve abroad after graduation, 09:04 we will make their educational debt payments 09:06 for them while they serve abroad. 09:08 So that's opened up the whole world field, 09:10 not just medical students and dental students, 09:12 but all of our students, 09:13 public health, nursing, pharmacy, 09:15 all the different students to have a chance 09:17 to serve abroad. 09:18 So why is that so important to you as an institution? 09:22 Well, to me, this is what Loma Linda needs to do 09:25 to still be Loma Linda. 09:27 We often look and they say, 09:28 "Well, what a wonderful thing you do for the world church?" 09:30 I look at it exactly the other way around, 09:32 what a wonderful thing the world church provides us 09:35 to prepare our students for service, 09:37 because it's been shown many, many times 09:39 that a person that engages in service, 09:42 is truly happy and complete in and of themselves. 09:45 So that's what we're trying to do is 09:46 give our students a sense of the skills, 09:50 the sense of accomplishment to be able to engage 09:52 in service around the world. 09:53 Now, you're not just talking about this theoretically, 09:55 because I understand that you were 09:57 one of the very first Adventist volunteers 10:00 to go over overseas to serve. 10:02 Tell me about that? 10:04 Well, that was a long time ago, 10:05 but actually after my sophomore year 10:08 at Walla Walla College, 10:09 I was the first student missionary 10:11 they sent abroad. 10:12 Well, at that time, we just did three months, 10:14 raised our own funding. 10:15 And I went down to the jungles of Peru 10:16 and worked down there in Iquitos, 10:18 became a dentist, pulled a hundred teeth 10:20 and did various things down there in Peru. 10:22 So that was my first introduction 10:23 to service abroad. 10:25 And how did that affect your outlook on mission? 10:27 I was already focused on serving abroad 10:29 even before then, 10:30 but that certainly accelerated it. 10:31 I'm fascinated by cultural understanding 10:34 and all the issues that come up 10:35 when you work in different settings. 10:37 So that's been the story of my life. 10:39 Many people think I grew up as a missionary kid. 10:41 I did not. I grew up in Northern Idaho. 10:42 I mean, I was a typical farm boy, 10:44 Northern Idaho. 10:46 But I was bitten by the idea of working abroad. 10:49 Then you later served in Africa? 10:50 Yes. 10:51 We worked actually for the US State Department 10:54 in the country of Tanzania. 10:55 Helped to develop 10:56 a national maternal and child health program 10:58 in the ministry of health for the government of Tanzania. 11:01 And then came back to Loma Linda, 11:02 and I've been there ever since. 11:04 Wonderful. 11:05 Now, you described 11:07 a huge institution to us, mammoth. 11:09 How do you keep something so big 11:11 with so many departments? 11:12 How do you keep it focused on mission? 11:14 That's always a challenge, 11:16 of course, with as many activities 11:17 we have going on, 11:19 but we're very deliberate about that. 11:20 And we basically have programming. 11:22 We have actual activities. 11:24 We encourage the students to take part in. 11:26 It becomes part of their curriculum. 11:27 One of the points I make at Loma Linda, 11:29 this isn't co-curricular activities. 11:31 This is curricular activities. 11:32 This is how you become a professional. 11:35 And so, we are very deliberate about the kind of program. 11:38 In my view, you do this by experiential learning. 11:40 This is not classroom teaching. 11:42 This is, how do I engage with human need in a real way. 11:46 And that tends to help to influence who I become. 11:48 Excellent. 11:50 Tell us about Adventist Health International 11:52 and the work that it does? 11:54 About 20 years ago now, 11:56 we recognize that many of our mission hospitals 11:58 were caught up 11:59 in increasing competition from others, 12:02 decreasing professionals, 12:03 wanting to work for them and so on. 12:04 So we started AHI, Adventist Health International, 12:06 and try to work on that. 12:07 We now have some 40 hospitals 12:09 that we work with around the world. 12:11 It's a matter of trying to set up a better system 12:13 of governance and management, 12:15 encouraging donors to once again engage 12:16 with our institutions, 12:18 encouraging young Adventists and professionals 12:20 to come and be part of our institutions, 12:22 all those things we've gradually lost 12:23 through the years. 12:25 So we've tried to carefully develop 12:26 a management and governance system 12:28 that still leaves ownership with the local church, 12:31 but brings in the kind of expertise 12:32 and management models 12:34 that can help to reassure donors 12:36 and professionals 12:37 that it's worthwhile to engage with the church 12:38 and becoming a voice of the church. 12:40 Okay, wonderful. 12:41 Now, Dr. Hart, one of the things 12:42 that's very important to us in global mission 12:44 is the great growing urban areas 12:47 of the world. 12:48 And you're a public health professional. 12:50 What does the church have to offer to the cities? 12:54 One of the things and particularly in Africa, 12:56 less so in Asia, 12:58 most of our hospitals are rural hospitals. 13:01 We have very little in the cities. 13:03 And so one of the objectives we have right now 13:05 is establish medical centers in the cities, 13:07 not big fancy hospitals, 13:08 but multi-specialty clinics places 13:10 that our young Adventist health professionals 13:13 come to work, support themselves, 13:15 but service and witness to that city. 13:17 So we're now in the process of building 13:19 one of those in Lusaka, Zambia, 13:21 a place we call Chalala one in a Long Way, 13:24 Malawi and other one in Blantyre, Malawi 13:27 and looking at other places that we can actually establish 13:29 city centers of influence. 13:30 Fantastic. 13:32 We'd like to go into some of the other countries. 13:33 I mean, this is the answer to, 13:34 frankly, the broad expanse of Northern Africa 13:36 and the Middle East, 13:37 is how do we establish things like that? 13:39 So we actually have graduates who are saying, 13:41 "Tell me how and when?" 13:43 I just recently had a young dental couple 13:44 come to me 13:46 both of them, third year dental students, 13:47 Korean-American background say our passion 13:50 is we are going to start a dental clinic 13:51 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia 13:53 where we have very little as a church. 13:55 I say it's great. 13:56 We'll work with you to get that set up. 13:58 Fantastic. 13:59 Dr. Hart, thanks for sharing with us 14:00 and thank you for what you're doing 14:02 through Loma Linda. 14:03 Thank you. 14:04 And viewers at home, please pray for Dr. Hart 14:06 and Loma Linda University Health. 14:08 What a wonderful ministry, 14:10 what a blessing they are 14:11 to helping communities all around the world. 14:14 Finding hope not just in life now, 14:17 but also hope for the future. 14:19 We'll be right back right after this break. |
Revised 2021-02-25