Dr. Paul Osteen has a coronary heart for the “least of those” and “reaching the unreached,” and he’s spent years serving the poor and downtrodden all through Africa.
Hearken to the newest episode of CBN’s Fast Begin podcast:
Osteen, brother of megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen, is making ready to host The Mobilizing Medical Missions (M3) Conference from Feb. 17-18, 2023, at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, an occasion aimed toward inspiring and equipping docs to serve on the mission discipline.
“I used to be raised in a pastor’s residence and, at 12 years of age, [my dad] took me on a mission journey to Africa with him,” he lately informed CBN’s Faithwire. “After I acquired off the tarmac, there, as we refueled, I simply felt like God put in my coronary heart: ‘In the future, you’d come again right here as a missionary.’”
Osteen mentioned God “birthed that dream” in his coronary heart.
After changing into a surgeon as an grownup and practising in Little Rock, Arkansas, Osteen was lastly in a position to go on his first medical mission journey 16 years in the past — and the expertise modified every little thing.
“God intersected my path with the flexibility to do medical missions,” he mentioned. “Now, I do this 4 or 5 months a 12 months [and I’m] in a position to spend that point in sub-Saharan Africa and simply see the wants and see the nice discrepancies in healthcare.”
Watch Osteen inform his story:
This expertise has given Osteen a eager capability to mirror on People’ many blessings.
“When my kids have been little, in the event that they wanted a Tylenol or ibuprofen for fever, we simply went to the pharmacy and acquired it,” Osteen mentioned. “However over there, there’s no drugstore. There’s no cash. There’s villages and so they’re far, far-off.”
He recalled one expertise working in a small missions hospital in Zambia when somebody approached him and mentioned he was the one particular person in an space the scale of Lousiana who was certified to do surgical procedure.
That revelation completely shocked Osteen, bringing residence the dire nature of the state of affairs there.
“It adjustments your theological lens a bit of bit,” he mentioned. “I heard somebody say … that, once they first began working within the growing world, they thought that the world was a spot of prosperity with pockets of poverty. However actually, the world is a spot of poverty with simply pockets of prosperity.”
Osteen added, “I’m simply grateful that we get to dwell the place we do. However I’m very empathetic with the individuals who don’t have entry to such issues, meals safety, drugs and many others.”
He recalled seeing 10 kids die in a 24-hour interval as a result of they have been too late to get malaria remedy — a horrific results of the tragic actuality so many face across the globe.
“They lived far-off; they needed to stroll,” he mentioned. “Mother introduced them when … they have been two days sick and by the point they get 4 days sick, they’re practically lifeless and, so fairly often, we are able to’t save them.”
Osteen mentioned malnutrition and lack of fresh water additionally breed extra well being points. However he’s on a mighty mission to place his God-given expertise to make use of.
Serving to serve these impacted, he mentioned, helps hold his “coronary heart comfortable” and likewise reminds him of the blessings he’s been given.
“There’s lots of struggling, and Christians ought to be concerned in assuaging that struggling as greatest as we are able to,” Osteen mentioned.
He’s hoping The Mobilizing Medical Missions (M3) Conference helps encourage docs, nurses, and different medical professionals to leap into the mission discipline and assist meet these important wants.
“We need to let individuals who have a coronary heart to make use of their presents and abilities and coaching in drugs … join with one another,” Osteen mentioned. “Quantity two, allow them to be impressed as they hear from people who find themselves within the discipline doing the work.”
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