In the background
I case you missed some previous posts, I’ll say again that I’m no longer working at Evangel Hospital nor as a physician. For the present, I’m the computer support person for SIM Nigeria. The change has carried a certain change of perspective on ministry. Before, I was directly involved in bringing healing and comfort, and I was teaching other doctors the same. For now, my own ministry is no longer "front line," but involves enabling others in the team to carry on their front line ministries.
This is not an uncommon pattern either in missions or in other vocations. I think that these days, many churches and supporters have embraced the idea of teamwork in ministry (and in the life of the whole Church). There are still some who want to support only front-line missionaries, or even more specifically only church planters, only national missionaries, and so on. I’m sure, though, that they would be surprised and dismayed if they went to the hospital for treatment and found that only doctors and nurses were there. Clearly, a hospital couldn’t run effectively like that.
Anyway, now that I’m in the position of computer systems coordinator, I’m focusing on how I can support the ministry of the whole team, including those who are on the front line and others who are also on the support and enabling side of things. It’s easy to get so immersed in computer issues and technicalities that I forget the ultimate goals. So I’m trying to consciously think about the work that others are doing, work that I contribute to in a small part by keeping their computers and email running smoothly.
It’s inevitable that I will write about computers in this blog, now that that is my work, but I will also be writing about some of the people that I am serving, and about the work that they do. People like René Marshall who helps spearhead a youth camp ministry in this country where, with tens of millions of young people, even Christian young people, such camps are almost unheard of. Knowing that I am contributing in some way to that ministry really gives me a boost!
June 9th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Mike -
I’m curious as to how services like Twitter are playing a role (if any) in Nigeria. I know cell phones are prevalent - but I can’t recall if people were using txt messaging much for the brief time when I was there in 2006.
I know I was, in sending messages back and forth the entire two weeks to keep people posted on what was going on - but don’t recall if many others were.
I wonder if using a service similar to Twitter could help improve communications during emergencies or just day to day operations.
Or, would the increased “transparency” become a security risk?
June 20th, 2008 at 12:31 am
I have never heard of Twitter being used here, and I’ve never even used it myself. For that matter, I’m not sure I understand the whole point myself … in any case, cell phones are extremely popular but few people have access to internet, and even fewer have frequent access, so phone-to-phone communication is by far the most useful form of communication.
I should experiment with Twitter, I suppose, to get a better sense of its potential. The idea of using it in an emergency is intriguing, but doesn’t it depend on internet access, the very first thing likely to be lost in an emergency, at least here?