HIV/AIDS

Tuberculosis remains a global public health threat. This session will provide public health updates from the field on some new approaches to TB diagnosis and treatment in developing countries, as well as some recent advances on such topics as child TB, community-based TB, TB-HIV, and MDR-TB.

Buddhists in East Asia largely believe in one of the dominant Buddhist traditions, animism and ancestor worship. They believe in karma, the moral law of cause and effect which demands that every soul suffer for its past “sins;” so there is no value in alleviating suffering. While very few Buddhists have come to Christ through the direct preaching of the gospel, some have responded to the compassion shown by medical missionaries since the early 19th century. This session features the plight of one leprosy patient, an outcast in society who gradually found new life through the lives of Christians who dared to touch him, clean his wounds and tell him about Jesus. This session will bring attendees face to face with a culture that is very resistant to the gospel, the reasons for that resistance and what we can do about it.

HIV/AIDS remains a tremendous challenge with medical, emotional, economic and social problems. Using case presentations and an interactive format, this workshop will explore HIV/AIDS care and treatment issues particularly from the speaker’s experience in Africa

This session will address how the Church can be mobilized toward practical responses in the prevention of HIV/AIDS and for the care of people living with and impacted by HIV/AIDS. Biblically-informed approaches, examples and case studies from Food for the Hungry and other ministries will emphasize how grassroots efforts can be informed by proven strategies that have measureable and multiplicative effect.

Obedience to God’s laws favors health. This includes laws found in the Bible.

In this interactive session we will discuss what makes HIV prevention and ministry effective, the importance of the active involvement of the church in HIV and why it is essential to tailor strategies to local culture. The session will be based on the experience of the facilitator in HIV prevention (since 1985) and in empowering nationals to develop their own unique approaches to and tools for HIV minsitry around the world.

This is one of the principle precepts taught in every med school, and is the basis for all emergency medicine.  But while we are careful to “do no harm” with our patients, we overlook the harm we do in perpetuating a fallen health delivery system by the way we run our practices.  This workshop examines several best practice models of how Christian health professionals have chosen to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, and will challenge us to look at our responsibility as ambassadors of Christ’s Kingdom to transform our practice of medicine in ways that reflect His character and will.

Despite the declining AIDS death rate and lessening HIV prevalence in many African countries, HIV/AIDS remains a tremendous challenge with medical, emotional, economic and social problems. Using case presentations and an interac- tive format, this workshop will explore HIV/AIDS care and treatment issues particularly from the speaker's experience in Africa.The volume of aid resources doesn matter as much as the implementation philosophy that the aid is being channeled into. The old adage that ideas have consequences is quite true untested and shallow ideas often have negative consequences on those that are being served. This session will explore the difference between a dependency philosophy and an empowering strategy, and these ideas will be shared in such a way to be applied to any aid related work.