Core Group, Dec 7th

“And my God shall supply all you need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.” - Phil 4:19

We have really felt so blessed this last week. I am especially thankful for the women who came alongside me to help us prepare for our transition. Kiana, a missionary who has been here a year longer than us, brought us meals the last two days so that we didn’t even have to worry about what to eat. Becca, our neighbor, planned a going-away party for us with friends, and gave us boxes and space to store our things. Amanda allowed our group to use her house for get togethers in the future, and is taking care of our microwave. Lauren and her husband are storing our car. These women have been a blessing for me throughout the entire year as we shared joys and struggles and exercise routines and how God’s word is challenging us. I think that one of the things I will miss the most about being back in the US is that I will no longer be surrounded by these women who have left behind so much to follow their callings of ministry in Africa. It’s hard to find friends who are singularly dedicated to service, and who are going through the same life struggles as me. I praise God that he has used them to show me so much love throughout the year, and especially in these last weeks. I’m leaving feeling filled. And I pray that God will bring us encouragers and partners and people to sharpen us and lift us up even in the short time we are back in America. It will be a new set of challenges, far outside my comfort zone. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intimidated. But praise God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

Saying Goodbye to Malawi, Dec 1st

Friends at the clinic

During my final days working at ABC clinic, I’ve been blessed with great interactions with patients I’ve come to know and appreciate. Patients who started out with uncontrolled diabetes, uncontrolled blood pressure, uncontrolled depression, who now have smiles on their faces and hope for the future. It’s been a blessing to be the first doctor to explain things to some of them – patients who for the first time feel like healthcare is a partnership and they can make decisions about how to pursue better health for themselves. It’s so hard to leave these people whom I care for – not only caring for their health concerns, but coming to know them as individuals and caring about their families and life goals. I’m praying that I get a chance to come back soon. It’s different from three years ago when I said goodbye to the patients I saw in San Bernardino. With them, I could send them to any number of my colleagues, and the few that insisted they wanted to stay with me I joked that they could follow me to Africa if they still wanted me to be my patients. But my Lilongwe patients don’t have as many options. There are a few specialty-trained doctors in down and they are either so busy that it is hard to see them or so expensive that most people cannot afford to see them. I know I fill a need here. At my going-away party, one of the clinicians said that he hoped that I returned as a lecturer because I am good at explaining things to people. It’s true, I hope that my next posting allows me to train a future generation of doctors and clinicians so that there won’t be such a huge gap when one primary care provider leaves the city. Oh, that God might give us strength and arrange everything for the next step of our journey.

New Beginnings: Greg and Christina Miller’s Update January 22, 2019

I’d never seen Greg like this. At lunch, he told me that he had a message that he wanted to share with the whole group at the Christian Health Service Corps orientation. That was surprising in itself, but even more uncharacteristically, he couldn’t seem to wait. After lunch, he asked the director when there might be time in the packed schedule to add his thoughts. The director was open to having Greg speak, but there just didn’t seem to be time. An hour later, Greg was whispering at me with an urgency that I’ve never heard from him that he wanted to go forward and speak then. We had just heard some troubling stories from missionaries about limited resources and unfortunate deaths, and were struggling to reconcile the burdens from patients with our own resilience, but there were more videos to watch in our current session before our break. And then the internet cut out and the videos stopped streaming and after a while, it was clear that other sessions were over for the time being, so Greg was invited forward to speak. He shared from Mark 2, from a time when Jesus was surrounded by so many people indoors that a group of men lowered a paralytic through a roof to reach him. I’m sure a lot of healthcare providers in our group would have identified with Jesus at first, being surrounded by so many people that those needing healing starting pouring from the sky. We are trained in medicine and sometimes think healing is our responsibility and death is our personal failure, but we are confusing our roles. Instead, Greg pointed out that our role was to be the ones who bring the hurting, paralyzed, and outcasts to Jesus. Sometimes we have to break down a roof to get the patient there, but ultimately our roles are to show love and acceptance and the care that we can, and then we lay our patients at the Lord’s feet for him to heal. And if Jesus choses to bring spiritual healing without physical healing to our patients, we need to trust him in that rather than thinking ourselves failures as his followers. The message that had been pressing on Greg, making him jittery with the desire to stand up and speak it, ended up providing some great context and powerful closure for issues many of us were wrestling with that day.

After our orientation, we continued at the CHSC retreat and conference center for a course on Community Health Evangelism. The material has challenged us regarding how we can work together alongside pastors and community development specialists in Malawi in the future. Just yesterday we returned to California and moved in to our temporary housing in Pasadena. Praise God for Providence Mission Homes and their ministry of blessing furloughed missionaries. In the next few weeks, we plan to reach out to several groups and individuals about becoming partners with us during the next phase in our ministry in Malawi. Please prayerfully consider whether you might be interested in meeting with us and discussing details.

Thank you for your support, Greg and Christina

Main house at CHSC's Shalom Retreat Center