AMEN Australia 2020 Conference: Centres of Influence

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Bee See

Health Ministry in a Lockdown

Good evening all, I want to thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about what we've been doing in health ministry here in Melbourne in the context of a lockdown.

For many of our colleagues interstate, I guess we've all experienced lockdown to differing degrees And depending on where you work, whether it be in a hospital or a private practice setting, your workflow may have changed to differing degrees as well.

I was 1 such individual that was affected by the lockdowns.

As a private practitioner, I found myself out of work for an indefinite period of time at the start of the first lockdown.

I'm a little stuck, a little frustrated, but wanting to use this time and energy to harness the talents and gifts of myself, my friends at church, and those that had also suffered the same fate in their respective jobs, whether they be healthcare professionals or not.

We got together, a group of us, and we started to reflect on what value add the local church could be and could add in a scene where humanitarianism was rampant.

People were paying meals forward, people were preparing care packages and delivering to those in need, people were engaged in bushfire relief, And even health care workers were being tended to by a huge campaign called Alex Makes Meals, where a 26-year-old Monash University student started to engage out-of-work chefs, cafes, hospitality venues to cook thousands and thousands of meals for healthcare workers across Melbourne every week.

So as we started to ponder the question of how would the local church be different, we were impressed with the burden to start Lifebox.

And Lifebox was really inspired by the verse John 10.10.

We wanted to give life to those and that was sustaining other people's lives.

We wanted to provide them with some healthy, nutritious meals.

But ultimately, our vision was that we would use this as an entering wedge to invite these colleagues of ours, our friends, our partners in arms to something with a more gospel focus eventually.

It wasn't a health ministry portfolio project but rather 1 tool in the toolkit of many resources and many ministries and many ministry ideas that every church member has at their disposal if they want to reach their friends and they have a burden.

So we wanted to present an accessible health message to a particular demographic that has essentially a very high health literacy in a way that would appreciably add value to their life.

Perhaps some of these weren't able to participate in Alex Makes Meals because they had specific dietary requirements.

How could we be more niche in the healthcare workers that we were reaching, not just in the big hospitals, but in the small clinics, in the pharmacies, in Adelaide Health precincts.

So what ensued was a project of delicious proportions and over the course of about 2 to 3 months We cooked hundreds and hundreds of meals for hospital workers, for pharmacists, for disability care support workers.

And the team was an interesting conglomerate of people.

We had 2 chefs who were on furlough during the lockdowns.

We had 1 economist, we had 2 accountants, 1 nurse, 1 dentist, 1 doctor, 1 conveyancer, and several other non-health professionals who also joined the efforts as support staff and delivery drivers.

We provided vegan meals without ever advertising that was vegan and many of the participants were so surprised that the food was so tasty and inquired about what was in it.

We were cooking about 40 to 120 meals 3 times a week out of the facilities of a kind donor whose cafe had been put out of work.

And some of the health care workers even requested for extra meals for their families so that they would be able to share what they were receiving.

God really blessed our efforts and we were able to reach St.

Vincent's Hospital, Cabrini, Monash, a pharmacy, several GP clinics, several disability support service centres, and each team member in our team made it a point to make 1 contact with a nurse or a ward manager in each of these facilities and to establish rapport by getting in contact with them every week, to arrange a pickup point, to ask for feedback, and so forth.

This health ministry project for us was completely different to any cooking class, CHIP program, depression recovery, evangelistic model we had ever participated in.

All we really had was 1 minute of contact time in the car park of a facility, usually masked up, waving from 1.5 meters away, and perhaps a text or a call to message for pickup.

That was the time that we had to sow the seed.

God really blessed him with the support of the AEMEN community, so thank you to those here online that participated and supported us financially and in your prayers.

The Adventist record and the Adventist world also gave us coverage and we received donations from all across the world and raised about $4, 300 in the space of 3 weeks solely by crowdfunding.

Requests came in from all over the country from hospitals and nurses and emergency departments and COVID wards that wondered how they could get a Lifebox delivery too.

And even though the Lifebox team was predominantly based in Melbourne, we were able through a kind colleague, Megan Forbes and her team and Avenue's colleague up in New South Wales in Wollongong had to reach the Shoalhaven Hospital Emergency Department here as in the picture.

And so we thank God that the spirit of Lifebox, the spirit of generosity but ultimately of considered, tailored but intentional health ministry spread across Australia in a short space of time.

What was a blessing to us was also to see how Lifebox was blessing even in our backyard.

And we found that Henry Pahn, the guy pictured in both pictures here in the chef's hat, was our main chef in the team.

He had previously been working as a chef in the SB Hotel, a fine dining institution here in Melbourne, and he was an indefinite fellow.

He was a young Adventist and he was wondering how he would navigate this challenging experience and what that would mean for his faith.

But after a few weeks of participating in Lifebox, he felt he had gained so much meaning and fulfillment from the project and being able to use his talents for ministry that he engaged and invited his friends, his colleagues, a sous chef, the guy in the brown and the apron, and a patisserie chef, the lady in the back on the right.

And they reached out to him via his social media platforms where he had shared his experiences with Lifebox and asked if they could volunteer their time and give to this project as well.

We had 1 guy, a student from Monash Uni who is probably sick of Zoom classes at home, who got in contact with us via email and asked if he could help to deliver meals or help be a kitchen hand in any way possible.

And that's the guy that you see next to Henry in the picture on the left.

The most valuable time was not the meal delivery necessarily, or dropping it off or counting the boxes of food that was being delivered, but really the contact time that Henry had had with his colleagues in the kitchen for hours preparing the meals.

And the way that we were able to establish rapport and reach out and sow seeds in these people's hearts that we would otherwise not have been able to do if God had not given us this opportunity.

Ultimately, Lifebox was not designed to be a perpetual church program that will run every year without end, but rather it was an answer to an immediate need at the time of the lockdown.

As the second lockdown started to ease and more people and more non-hospitalists could return to work, we transitioned to invite all of Lifebox meal eaters, hospital staff, hospital contacts, and Lifebox volunteers to live more, thank you Elia, to live more as an extension of Lifebox's package of wellness that we were offering people during this time of lockdown.

At the conclusion of the six-week program, we now have 8 non-Adventists who have come through the program and regularly attend a young professional gathering every week within a church that celebrates wellness and fellowship, community and faith.

Through this experience, I think I learned 3 things about health ministry and being a witness where we are.

Sometimes we are so enticed by the glamours of the overseas mission trip or the big seminar that runs every year or having the big posters and flyers, but that was not achievable this year.

However, I learned that health ministry that involves the whole church needs to really come from the church rather than the health team or the health ministry director delivering a project and asking people to sign on.

Lifebox took on a life of its own really because it was really just understanding that health isn't an entering wedge.

Health is a right arm but it is exactly that.

It is a right arm to those that first have a burden for other people and then health is just 1 in a toolbox of many things that can be used to meet needs.

The second, that health ministry for a worldly wealthy and well educated society requires agility and innovation to add value beyond other wellness initiatives.

A simple cooking class is not going to cut it for our colleagues.

A simple diabetes seminar is not going to cut it for our colleagues.

A simple diabetes seminar is not going to cut it for our colleagues, who probably run their own diabetes seminars in the hospitals for patients.

And thirdly, health ministry is an entering wedge for the gospel, not only because more people are opening up to discuss their physical needs and it breaks down barriers, but it is also something that other people can champion and get behind, even if they're non-Adventist, even if they don't necessarily understand the fullness of the gospel in the way that we do.

It isn't necessarily the cooking class or the diabetes education seminar or the depression seminar that we are aiming for.

It is those golden nuggets of opportunity to stand arm in arm with those around the world that God is raising up, Adventist, non-Adventist, who recognize the value in wellness, in health, in community, in faith, and fellowship, and want to live more together.

And so we thank God for the lessons that Lifebox taught us.

We pray that you would be inspired to meet the needs of those around you in the same way and we look forward to sitting around in heaven 1 day and hearing all the stories of how you have ministered to others in your sphere of influence.

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Health Ministry in a Lockdown

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