Global Medical Missionary Movement Officially Launches at Founding Meeting

The new Global Medical Missionary Movement (MMM) held its founding meeting on May 17 at Sahmyook Health University in Seoul, South Korea. The meeting marked a starting point for strengthening medical missionary work and building an international cooperation network.

MMM was first organized on March 12, 2023, at Sahmyook University, when participants shared the need to train professional medical missionaries through medical and dental programs at the Adventist University of the Philippines. After a period of preparation the movement has now officially begun as an organized ministry, regional church leaders reported.

Medical mission leaders and supporters attended the meeting to share MMM’s vision and discuss future operations and international cooperation. The meeting highlighted plans to train professional medical missionary personnel, expand global health-care networks, and explore partnerships with the World Health Organization and the General Conference’s global mission cooperation system.

The founding meeting highlighted plans to train professional medical missionary personnel, expand global health-care networks. [Photo: Northern Asia-Pacific Division]

According to regional church leaders, “MMM plans to carry out a systematic medical missionary movement focused on expanding the vision of global medical mission, building domestic and international cooperation networks, and promoting medical volunteer service. It also seeks to provide spiritual and basic medical training through a medical missionary academy and expanding its board of supporting directors.” Leaders explained that as part of this effort, MMM also seeks to support young people from across the NSD territory, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Mongolia, who dream of becoming medical missionaries by helping them study at the Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP), return to their home countries, and serve through both healing and mission.

Joo Hee Park, president of Sahmyook Health University, who served as cochair of the founding meeting, said, “Sahmyook Health University is an institution that God has upheld through countless crises over the past 90 years. The surest vision for preparing for the future is education, and our mission is to become a university that exists for world mission and medical service.”

The new organization marks “a new starting point for standing in solidarity with the international community and practicing humanitarian love,” Sahmyook University president Joo Hee Park said. [Photo: Northern Asia-Pacific Division]

He added, “MMM is not simply the launch of an organization. It is a new starting point for standing in solidarity with the international community and practicing humanitarian love through medicine and service. Our university will establish the Global Medical Missionary Training Center and actively cooperate in training medical missionaries.”

During the meeting, Jong-Ki Park, director of Eden Clinic, was appointed as MMM’s first board chair. “Training medical missionaries who serve as the right arm of gospel ministry is a mission for our time as we prepare for Christ’s return,” Park said. “Through MMM we will continue to support and assist missionaries from training and commissioning to settlement in mission fields.”

Shin-Seop Kim, who was appointed president, emphasized the importance of medical mission in unreached areas. “The 10/40 window, which the General Conference is focusing on, is not only home to many unreached people groups but also one of the regions most severely affected by gaps in medical care,” he said. “Medical mission, where the gospel and healing work together, is an important mission that God has entrusted to the church in the last days.”

The original version of this story was posted on the Northern Asia-Pacific Division news site.