AMEN Australia 2012: Right Arm, Right Approach, Right Now

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Mission Testimonies

Just before we have prayer, I've been given a dispensation to say a few words.

I was very impressed with Robert's presentation this morning, also John's comments about challenges that he faced, and I thought I'd share a little with mine.

Quite a few years ago, just after the end of World War II, I started in medicine up in Queensland, and we'd had very few Adventists go through there, and discussing Sabbath problems was completely new to them.

I'd like to make these comments to encourage people that may be facing similar challenges, and also to give honour to the Amen, to the faithful and true witness that we spoke about last night.

Well, I made an application to have privileges and was told that there was a lot of things ahead.

There was examinations, 3 in the first year.

There was various other classes that I had to attend.

But they strung me along a bit anyway as far as the examination, because that was immediately on the horizon.

And then just a few days before the exam took place, they closed the door and said, no, either sit for it or you're out.

And this was a time when there was plenty of people around wanting to do courses because the return men were coming through and being rehabilitated as far as their education is concerned.

Well, a good minister friend of mine put his collar on back to front and went up and saw the Vice-Chancellor, presented the case, and just a few days before that exam I was told that, yes, I'd be allowed to sit for it on Saturday night after being in his company during the day.

Well, I thought that's a good start, but we had to do this over and over again until I recognised that a precedent had been made.

Until fourth year of the six-year course, we managed to get along and to make other arrangements where things clashed.

But in fourth year, the dean, who was a secular Jew, an elderly man who'd been a thoracic surgeon, and 1 of the founders of the medical school up there.

He thought he'd put an end to this nonsense.

I had public health demonstrations that were listed for Saturday, running out to see water purification plants, sewage depots, all sorts of things.

And I approached the people that were running these and got their cooperation but I had to get the Dean's position, permission, but he was adamant there's no more of this nonsense, do it or you're out And he got the backing of the professorial board in saying this too.

So I tried other places, other ways around the problem, but nothing seemed to be of avail.

So I just missed the first few sessions and was then suspended.

And it was considered by the board again and I was given the ultimatum.

I got a job in a factory for a few weeks and then it occurred to me that I might be able to do something.

And I approached the heads of different departments.

The first 2, couldn't get anywhere with them because I knew that after 3 years I could do another year in science and perhaps get into a career in teaching or something like that with a Bachelor of Science.

But the third 1 that I went to received me with open arms.

He was a young, brilliant young professor in physiology and he said, by all means come and we'll help you out by giving you some demonstrating to do so that you can eat while you're doing the course.

What I discovered afterwards, that he saw things quite differently on other subjects to the dean.

Without asking me, he went and started to go around the members of the faculty and it got right up to the Vice-Chancellor and I was asked to go and interview him.

The year was rolling by, of course, by this time.

And just before the next year intake of medical students, I might mention too that there was a Protestant minister, a non-Adventist, on the University Senate who brought the matter up.

And the upshot of this was that I was invited to reapply for medicine after finishing the year in science, getting a Bachelor of Science, and I was able to do so on my own terms and completed the demonstrations at other times as had been originally arranged.

Well there were other hurdles but I'll just mention 3 advantages of taking a stand.

1 was another student that was also facing problems in a different faculty was watching what I was doing and deciding whether he would take a stand or not.

Secondly the University Senate passed a regulation that people that had religious convictions about doing things on Saturday be given other opportunities or exemptions.

And thirdly, the very weekend that I had been put out of the university virtually, 1 of our leaders from 1 of the Union missions was visiting the church where I worshipped, and he heard about it.

He didn't say anything to me at the time, but years later, he told me that he'd made a resolution at that moment if I was able to get back into medicine and he was in a position to do something that would involve me, later on, he would do so.

About 10 years later, he became the chairman of our board at our health retreat here in Victoria.

And he had a vision of doing something different that would bring strength to the facility, some postgraduate work, and I was nominated to do that.

And following that was 20 years of very fruitful ministry in which many people found their way into the church.

I'd like to say that God will fulfill his promises if we are obedient to Him, and He will use us in ways that we can't imagine.

Yeah, it was a career change, but it was a change that I feel blessed, not only myself, but others.

Dear Lord, we thank you for those presentations that have been made already.

We give you the glory also for the meaningful lessons that we've been studying this week on the deeper meanings of these ordinances of the Church, teaching us humility, teaching us dependence on you, making that final commitment that is symbolised by baptism.

Help us if we want to be more actively involved in your work to be cooperative with other church agencies and with 1 another as we seek to glorify you and add to your kingdom we ask in Jesus name.

I've been working at Highwood Health Centre as a doctor for about 7 years and I want to focus on a couple of case histories from my work there.

I'm also asking Hal Mayer to come up and show you a few slides around the place.

He's, yeah, General General Manager I think I'd say.

Sally is not the real name of my first case.

I'm not going to give real names for obvious reasons.

She's 36 when she came to Highwood and she came from a Buddhist background in her family but had become a nominal Christian of sorts when she came to Highwood.

So she had booked in for a 19-day stay which is really where we get most of our results, in the long stays.

Her problem was a bloated abdomen and she also had some depression.

We treated her at Highwood with massage, our usual fantastic Symphed Adventist vegetarian diet.

We also used sauna, exercise program and clay wraps.

And she was given the lectures on health that we normally give there and cooking demonstrations.

Interestingly in her case she told me that the therapy that helped the most for her was having clay wraps.

Most of our, in fact almost every treatment we do at Highwood we ask the guest if they would like a prayer and it's amazing when you use natural remedies how when you pray it makes such a fantastic difference.

So anyway, she just said my abdomen is normal now.

I hadn't actually diagnosed at that stage what was the cause of her problem, but we felt that Clare Apps might assist her, and so they did.

She enjoyed our worships and it rekindled her faith in God to some degree during her time, to the extent that when 1 of our workers who was working as a receptionist at the time, invited her to do Bible studies just before she went home.

She said, yes, I would like to stay in the Bible with you.

We had a worker at that time who came up from Melbourne to work at Highwood as a receptionist, and she was our key contact for when they went back into Melbourne and was able to do follow-up studies with the lady guests anyway.

So she went through and did a series of Bible studies with that worker and was baptized into a Melbourne, a regular Melbourne church and is now a very happy Seventh-day Adventist.

In fact she got married to a Seventh-day Adventist young gentleman who was eagerly looking for a young lady to marry and they both happily married and last time I met her she said she is making great progress on helping her Buddhist family members in particular by approaching them from the health perspective.

The second case history I'd like to give is Carla.

Carla was 55 when she came to Highwood Health Centre, she was a struggling Protestant Christian.

Her husband was an atheist and as far as I know still is.

She had heard of Highwood through another Melbourne-based ministry and she had a quite bad rheumatoid arthritis.

She was on a number of medications for this and her arthritis was getting worse.

She had just been advised to have a change and an increase in her medications.

She was generally stressed out and had weight problems.

Carla was treated In a similar way to Sally, our first case, she was, however, with rheumatoid arthritis, we have found that extended juice fasting can be of assistance.

We normally do 2 days a week at Highwood and she did that I think she actually did a little bit more.

We also have found hydrotherapy quite effective for autoimmune conditions particularly fever baths if their cardiac status can handle it and she had hydrotherapy for her condition.

Her weight went down from 78.5 kilograms to 76 kilograms during the 19 days she stayed and her rheumatoid factors, actually her rheumatoid markers on blood tests became a lot better and she didn't need to have more medication.

In fact, she's been able to reduce the medication.

I'm going to share with you actually some of her own words because when she was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church, she gave a testimony, quite a few pages actually.

I'm only going to read some of the main points relating to Highwood.

Quote, I liken Highwood to crossing the Jordan River because of all the water.

Never before have I had so much water flow over me, in me, through me and out of me.

It was a total cleansing of body, soul and spirit.

I chose to do the full 19 days because it was recommended for those with an autoimmune disease.

If I did this course, I'd have to do it properly or not at all, and I was determined to make the most of every second and learn everything I could.

Highwood turned out to be a major turning point in my life.

The first week my brain was just mush and I couldn't even cope with information.

My brain couldn't handle reading even a paragraph and I would have to read sentences over and over again to make sense of them.

Actually I might mention that we have generally found the first week people are is quite challenging.

Mission Testimonies

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Plenary

The Third Angel’s Thumb

1h 24m

Christ our Righteousness

Christ our Righteousness - Part 1

47m

Personal Excellence

Steps to Success

1h

AMEN 2009 Breakout Seminars

The Foolish Missionary

1h 12m

Plenary

Final Charge

18m

Seminars

How to Preach and Speak with Power

1h 42m

Steve Wohlberg Weekend

02 Identifying the Seven-Headed Beast

1h 4m

Special Interests

Acquainting Agriculture: Grow to Know Him

44m

The REBELution

1h 9m

True Education and Agriculture

Institutional Farming: The How

57m

iShare 2013 Seminar: Cutting Edge 3 - The End of the Trilogy

The Sabbath and Atheism

36m

Homesteading

All You Need to Know About Money on an Index Card

58m

Sound Doctrine