Join fellow outgoing healthcare missionaries and veteran missionary faculty for what could be the most valuable four days you’ll spend as you prepare to leave for the field. If you intend to leave for the mission field within the next five years, this conference is for you!
The transition into life as a cross cultural missionary along with your first few years of service are a critical period. Healthcare missionaries face unique opportunities and challenges that can make this transition particularly intense. You’ve been called by the Lord to go. Your theological preparation, formal or informal, and your training in healthcare have built your foundation for service. Your sending agency adds to this, helping you understand how your role fits into the bigger picture of Kingdom building that your team endeavors to accomplish.
But intentionally preparing to meet the unique challenges that healthcare missionaries face is critical. Drawing boundaries even in the face of incredible need, thinking about team dynamics, protecting your family and relationships, preventing moral injury and burnout, exploring the interplay between culture and healthcare, and effectively aligning medicine and ministry are among the important topics many missionaries haven’t deeply considered. These are potential landmines that can hamper your ministry effectiveness or even cut short your missionary service.
This gathering will provide you with tools, knowledge, and relationships that you’ll find to be invaluable. You’ll also find camaraderie with others who, like you, are about to step into the amazing adventure that is life as a healthcare missionary. Don’t miss this opportunity to invest four days in preparing yourself for years of effective, fruitful, and healthy ministry for the Kingdom!
Attendee: $150
Spouse: $100
Southeast Christian Church is a beautiful, mission- minded Church located in Louisville. In addition to Pre-Field, Southeast hosts the Global Missions Health Conference, which begins on Thursday afternoon after Pre-Field wraps up.
The city of Louisville is a beautiful place to visit, featuring the Ohio River waterfront, Louisville Slugger museum, Churchill Downs, and a variety of interesting neighborhoods and restaurants.
Lunch and snacks will be provided each day. Breakfast and dinner will be on your own. Please make your own lodging arrangements.
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Dr. Scott- Dr. Scott was educated at the College of William and Mary, the Medical College of Virginia and completed a residency in Family Medicine in Kansas City. He lived with his family in South Asia from 1999-2015, where he served at Bach Christian Hospital with TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission. In 2015, he began working as faculty in Family Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for six years. He presently serves as the Dean of Faculty for the Institute for International Medicine (INMED), a graduate school which prepares health care professionals to serve in the developing world. Since 2015, he has also served as Area Director for the Christian Medical and Dental Associations (CMDA) VCU chapter. He received teaching awards at VCU and from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. He annually takes senior medical students for month-long electives in mission hospitals in the developing world. He is very keen on the professional, moral and spiritual formation of students. He is fluent in Urdu and active with the S. Asian refugee and immigrant population in Richmond, Virginia. His wife, JoAnn, is a teacher and they have three grown married sons. |
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Mike Chupp- Dr. Chupp has served as the CEO of CMDA since 2019. He is a general surgeon and served at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya from 1996-2016 where he was medical director starting in 1997. He returned to the US in 2016 to work at CMDA. Mike is married to Pam, his high school sweetheart, and they have four wonderful children. |
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Bruce Dahlman- Bruce Dahlman MD, MSHPE, FAAFP, ABFM is a Global Family Medicine Education Consultant based in Grand Marais, MN. He currently serves as Executive Team member for the Christian Academy of African Physicians (CAAP), is Development Director for the Institute of Family Medicine in Nairobi, Kenya, is Director of the Digital African Health Library, is Senior Lecturer for the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Kabarak University in Kenya, and is Health Ministries Advisor for AIM International, headquartered in Peachtree City, GA. Dr Dahlan is a member of East African Health Professions Educators’ Association, World Organization of Family Doctors, AAFP, CMDA, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, and American Medical Informatics Association. Additionally, he holds positions on committees for Global Comprehensive Advanced Life Support, Health for All Nations, and the ICMDA National Institute of Health Sciences. Dr Dahlman received his BA Degree from Bethel University, his MD from University of Minnesota Medical School, and a Master of Science Health Professions Education from Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Dr. Dahlman has spent more than 25 years in leadership and teaching positions around the world and has presented and published on global health and healthcare education numerous times nationally and internationally. |
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Ken Gamble- Ken Gamble is a consultant at Missionary Health Institute. Formerly serving as physician and medical superintendent of a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, Dr. Gamble joined the MHI staff in 1982. Unwittingly he became a pioneer in the field of travel medicine and has committed his career to the health management of expatriates. Concurrently he served as staff physician under Dr. Jay Keystone at the Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine until 2005. Dr. Gamble has served as a longstanding member of the International Health Advisory committee for SIM International and served for eight years on CATMAT, an advisory committee to the Public Health Agency of Canada. He has received an honourary fellowship of travel medicine from the University of Glasgow. Dr. Gamble is keenly interested in telehealth, preventive medicine, risk management, and research in expatriate health, and he has co-authored and published review articles on expatriate health. He is married with two sons; his interests include cycling, bird-watching, and international travel. |
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Clare Hudson- Clare has served with SIM for over 30 years, living with family in rural Ethiopia, Nepal, and Thailand before retiring in 2020 to Charlotte, NC. She has enjoyed using her training as a physician assistant to do ‘backdoor medicine ‘. She has raised four children on the field, homeschooling each child part of the time. As a counselor, she worked with mission couples and singles in Chiang Mai at the Well, until returning to the mission home office to continue in member care. She is passionate about family transitions and would be happy to talk. |
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Paul Hudson- Paul Hudson (MD, MPH, FACP) trained as a physician at Johns Hopkins and as an epidemiologist at the CDC. He has over 30 years of experience with SIM in Ethiopia, Nepal, and Thailand, focusing on clinical medicine, community health, and HIV/AIDS. He has been in healthcare leadership with SIM for over a decade and authored “Healthcare and the Mission of God: Finding Joy in the Crucible of Ministry.” |
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Doug Lindberg- Doug serves as the director for CMDA’s Center for healthcare missions and will be your cohost for the Pre-Field conference. He and Ruth are both family physicians who served in Nepal from 2009-2013, where Doug was the medical director at HDCS TEAM Hospital Dadeldhura. They now reside outside Milwaukee with their children, ages 13 and 16. |
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Kris Prenger- Dr. Prenger has nearly 30 years’ experience serving the underserved. She graduated from The Ohio State University, completed a Family Medicine residency in Wilmington, DE, then worked from 1991-1996 on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Shiprock, NM. After one year’s Bible training, she began work in Bangladesh in 1997. She trained at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MPH in 2005), and Fuller Theological Seminary (MA in Intercultural Studies in 2018). During her time at LAMB Hospital, in rural NW Bangladesh, she has worked primarily in community health and development, with limited clinical work in Ob-Gyn (20+ years), then Med-Peds more recently. |
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Jarry Richardson- I was born and raised in Nigeria. My mom was the first woman doctor appointed by Southern Baptist’s to Nigeria in 1945. I trained in Internal Medicine and then Psychiatry and have been practicing at Mayo Clinic since 1979. My psychiatric practice is with severe mental illness and with colleagues in burnout, but my time with medical missionaries has been listening, supporting, and advising informally as one would with a colleague about a surgical or medical problem. I do not keep records of these visits or do clinical work where I do not have a license. |
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Jim Ritchie- Dr. Jim Ritchie is an Emergency Physician who served 25 years in the US Navy including two deployments to the war in Afghanistan, and seven years as Emergency Medicine Residency Director. He then served six years as a medical missionary in Chogoria, Kenya, helping start a Christian Family Medicine program for East African doctors. He helped build out the Longevity Project, a member care program for healthcare missionaries in MedSend, and now provides member care for the Post-Residency Program in World Medical Mission, and leads the MedTeam for Alongside counseling. He loves helping healthcare missionaries thrive in the difficult context of cross-cultural medicine, especially in dealing with moral injury and establishing mutually-supportive team boundaries. He and Martha have six children, ages 34 to 19. |
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Julie Rosa- For over 25 years, Drs. Pete and Julie Rosa have served as full-spectrum Family Medicine physicians committed to whole-person care through medicine, leadership, and education. Dr. Julie has focused on women’s and children’s health, mentoring students, and loving Arabic-speaking communities. She inspires others through speaking, adventure, and short-term medical trips with Medical Education International (MEI), part of CMDA. On July 1, 2025, she became MEI’s Director. Recently returning from Al Ain, UAE, to Northeast Kansas, she and her husband now serve the global Church by mobilizing healthcare professionals to reach Creative Access countries through their expanded leadership role. |
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David Stevens- From 1981 to 1991, Dr. Stevens was a missionary physician in Kenya helping to transform Tenwek Hospital into a premier mission healthcare outreach. He then became the medical director of Samaritan’s Purse and started their medical relief outreach in war and disaster zones. In 1994, he became the CEO of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations serving 25-years and led its efforts to motivate, train and equip medical missionaries worldwide. He started programs to recruit, train, and sustain healthcare missionary professionals around the world. Now as CEO Emeritus, he focuses on helping missionary hospitals. |
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Daniel Tolan- Dr. Tolan will serve as your host for the Pre-Field Conference, and he considers this gathering the highlight ministry event of his year. He is a family physician and served in Kenya at Tenwek Hospital with World Gospel Mission. He and his wife Cindy now live in Johnson City, TN where he practices emergency medicine while remaining very active both in mission leadership and in mentoring the next generation of healthcare missionaries. |
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Ruth Van Reken- Ruth Van Reken is a second generation Third Culture Kid* (TCK) and mother of three now adult TCKs. She is co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, 3rd ed., and author of Letters Never Sent, among other writings. She is co-founder of Families in Global Transition 2019 she received an Hon. Litt.D from Wheaton College for her life’s work. Ruth now lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband, David, and remains actively involved in mentoring and supporting globally mobile families in the ever-changing global landscape |
| Day 1 | Worship | 8:00 | |
| 3-Nov | Introductions | Doug Lindberg & Daniel Tolan | 8:15 |
| Monday | Prayer | 8:45 | |
| Acclimation and Assimilation | Doug Lindberg | 9:00 | |
| Member Care intro- Part 1 | Jarry Richardson & Ken Gamble | 10:00 | |
| Member Care intro- Part 2 | Jarry Richardson & Ken Gamble | 11:10 | |
| Lunch | 12:00 | ||
| Culture case studies- 1 | Daniel Tolan/ Kris Prenger | 12:45 | |
| Many Hats/ Strong Boundaries | Doug Lindberg | 1:45 | |
| Transition- Getting from Here to There | Ruth Van Reken | 2:30 | |
| Culture/ case studies 2 | Daniel Tolan / Kris Prenger | 3:40 | |
| End of day breakdown | 4:45 | ||
| PM individual sessions w/ member care | |||
| Day 2 | Worship and prayer time | 8:00 | |
| 4-Nov | Caring for Yourself and Your Family | Ruth Van Reken | 8:30 |
| Third Culture Kids | Ruth Van Reken | 9:35 | |
| Partnerships, Teaching, and Training | Julie Rosa | 10:30 | |
| Putting Medicine in its Place | Jim Ritchie | 11:10 | |
| Lunch | 12:00 | ||
| Moral Injury | Jim Ritchie | 12:45 | |
| Beyond Medicine | David Stevens | 2:00 | |
| Medical Missionaries in Crisis: Lessons to be Learned | Bruce Dahlman | 3:15 | |
| End of day breakdown | 4:45 | ||
| PM individual sessions w/ member care | |||
| Day 3 | Worship and prayer time | 8:00 | |
| 5-Nov | Leadership in medical missions | David Stevens | 8:30 |
| Dealing with so much death | Jim Ritchie | 9:25 | |
| Bioethics on the mission field | David Stevens | 10:20 | |
| Promises in the Dark- Book dicussion | Daniel Tolan | 11:10 | |
| Lunch | 12:00 | ||
| CHE & Community Development | Kris Prenger | 12:45 | |
| Culture/ case studies 3 | Daniel Tolan/ Kris Prenger | 1:35 | |
| Healthcare manageement & administration | David Stevens | 2:30 | |
| Leaving well- navigating goodbyes and relationships back home | Clare Hudson | 3:20 | |
| History of healthcare missions- Learning from our past as we look to the future | Paul Hudson | 4:05 | |
| End of day breakdown | 4:45 | ||
| PM individual sessions w/ member care | |||
| Day 4 | Worship and prayer time | 8:00 | |
| 6-Nov | Muslim healthcare ministry (with lessons that apply to non-Muslim contexts as well!) | Scott Armistead | 8:30 |
| Thursday | Boundaries- teams and insitutions | Jim Ritchie | 9:25 |
| Missionary in Residence Q&A | TBD | 10:15 | |
| Beyond thankfulness- incoporating praise in facing suffering / Commissioning | Daniel Tolan | 11:20 | |
| Lunch / dismissal | 12:00 | ||
| *** Sessions highlighted in red denote CME eligible |
Doug Lindberg
