On the 6th February 2011, 12 students from seven different countries arrived in London for one of the highlights of the CMF calendar: the International Student Preconference!
This conference brings Christian medical students from countries all over Eurasia to the UK for one week to gain teaching from UK experts in many areas, including Medical Ethics, Palliative Primary Care and Developing World Medicine, along with leadership and evangelism training. The hope is that the student will return to their country encouraged and envisioned in Christian medical ministry within their country, and able to give eternal benefit to other students in their Universities with the teaching they have received.
This year we had students from Syria, Hungary, Holland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Tajikistan and Russia for the pre-conference (with another three Hungarians and a doctor from Portugal joining us for the NSC)
During the week we spent time talking over important issues of Christian leadership, ethical issues in our day to day practice, and the importance of attending patients’ eternal lives as well as their physical bodies.
There were talks from John and Celia Wyatt, Bernard Palmer, Members of PRIME, local palliative care doctors, our international ministries team and many more!
Apart from being spiritually refreshing and equipping the week was also jammed full of fun! This was mainly thanks to the hospitality of those members who opened their homes to us in the evenings and helped with transporting from one side of London to the other.
For most of the students this was their first visit to the UK so, of course, there was a lot of sightseeing to be done! We toured round Westminster and along the Thames with a flurry of photography as we went. Another highlight of the week was Jay Smith’s Biblical Tour of the British Museum, and then we visited Burrswood Hospital. This is a Christian hospital where a ‘Bio-psycho-social-spiritual model’ is implemented. One of the moments which will stay with me forever was when the staff of Burrswood prayed for us and commissioned us in our future ministry as Christian Doctors.
I encourage you to join me in praying for them as Paul prayed for the Colossians:
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” 1 Colossians 1:9-13
And just to let you have a more detailed look at what went on I have included a video one of the attendees made about the week.
