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THIS SATURDAY May 1st - MHF Virtual Conversation: Provider Support Call - How Does Your Anabaptist Faith Impact How You Serve in Healthcare?
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Saturday May 1st, 2021 - 10 am Eastern on Zoom
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MHF invites you to another provider support conversation! All healthcare providers and students, in any field, are invited to share a time of fellowship and prayer together. Our theme for this support conversation will be: How does your Anabaptist faith impact how you serve as a healthcare provider? Has your faith impacted where and who you work with? How you navigated your education? The ways you interact with your patients? We'd love to hear about it! Let's support one another as Anabaptist healthcare providers!
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Please just us at 10 AM Eastern Time on Zoom. Registration link below.
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Note: If there are any other ways MHF can support you during this difficult time of Covid-19, please do not hesitate to reach out to Cate (cate@mennohealth.org) or any member of our Board of Directors.
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NEW PODCAST EPISODE: To Nazareth & Back, an Interview with Bob Martin
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Listen to this wonderful and moving interview with Dr. Bob Martin.
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Dr. Martin is a retired physician currently living in York County, PA. He spent much of his career working in medical missions in Nazareth, Israel alongside his wife, Nancy Martin. Nancy, who died in 2019, was instrumental in starting the School of Nursing at Nazareth Hospital. Dr. Martin recently published a memoir of their life journey entitled, “Together in Galilee." Mennonite Healthcare Fellowship recently featured a review of Bob Martin's book written by Board Member and Administrator Andrew Metzler -- read it here!
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MHF is a partner in recruiting volunteer chaplains for the same hospital where Bob and Nancy Martin worked, Nazareth Hospital. If you are interested in learning more about the program, you can read more here.
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Episode also available on itunes and all major Podcast platforms!
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Finding Holy Space in a Pandemic: Reflections from Four MHF Members
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A few months ago MHF published this reflection piece about serving during the pandemic. We are including one of the four reflections in each of our newsletters to make sure the beautiful words our MHF members wrote can be appreciated by as many of us as possible!
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The Faith of Friends – David Yost
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Like many newly minted COVID clinicians, 2020 landed me far from my anticipated plans. Retiring in 2018 after three decades with the Indian Health Service and Centers for Disease Control, I envisioned a life of short-term missions, world travel and enjoying the wonders of grandparenting. Yet by March, I had returned to full-time work as a COVID hospitalist and field physician with the IHS, learning those skills on the fly in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.
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Native Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the virus. By June, my reservation hospital in mountainous east-central Arizona had the unfortunate distinction of serving a community with the highest per capita COVID rate in the country. Despite ready access to PPE, testing, and treatments as compared to many non-Native groups, the Apache and Hopi communities where I served lost dozens of revered elders who were key to maintaining tribal culture, language and history. COVID landed on a backdrop of crowded multigenerational homes that frequently lacked power and water, stressing families already struggling with diabetes and substance abuse.
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In a hospital accustomed to a census of <15 but improvising daily to house 30="30">
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Although we are a federal facility, I’m blessed to be part of a medical staff filled with believers from numerous backgrounds. As COVID work strained our resources, our collection of Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists and the chance Mennonite stepped up to support one another by cross-covering shifts, working extra days, and just checking in regularly on each other’s well-being. Recognizing the rejuvenating importance of rest, we facilitated breaks to get our teammates away from the hospital, even to the point of allowing my wife and I time to travel to Goshen in August to meet our first grandchild.
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More impressive than our staff’s resiliency was the rallying response of our tribal communities. Schools were converted to testing and vaccine sites, casino hotels served as quarantine hostels, gymnasiums became water delivery depots, sawmill workers morphed into hospital security guards, and high schoolers learned to be elder advocates. Facing mandatory curfews and the closure of most tribal businesses, community members with vehicle access readily adopted food delivery roles for homes where 8-12 people often shared small 2-bedroom houses. Stress was evident, but so was strength and a dedication to helping others.
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COVID continues to teach lessons we didn’t want to learn. For me, it taught the value of relying on the faith of friends to support my own faith. I pray my life will also reflect God so that others may draw upon my faith in the same way that I have grown from them.
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David Yost is a family practice physician who spent the bulk of his career with the Indian Health Service on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. He also served with the Centers for Disease Control and has worked globally in locales including Puerto Rico, Tanzania, and New Zealand. When not enjoying their new granddaughter in Goshen, he and his wife continue to make their home in the mountains of rural Arizona.
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MHF Receives Innovation Grant from Mennonite Health Services
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MHF is proud to announce we are the recipients of one of the inaugural Innovation Grants awarded by Mennonite Health Services to fund an innovative project or idea to serve our constituents.
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MHF has partnered with the Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute to offer the Anabaptist-grounded Introduction to Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) Training for Cultural Competence, Racial Healing and Equity at a date yet to be determined, likely this Fall. The training will be held virtually and open to up to 60 MHF members thanks to the generous grant.
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"This training is a condensed version of the 5-day STAR Training created at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) and is highly relevant to healthcare providers who are walking with their patients and clients through trauma, navigating their own resilience, and attending to racial injustice in professional practice. Particularly in light of the incredible professional and personal struggles healthcare providers have faced during the Sars-Cov-19 pandemic and the realities of the “double pandemic” of racism and health inequities we believe this training is timely and necessary for our membership. STAR is an evidence-based research-supported training that integrates neurobiology, trauma healing and resilience, nonviolent conflict transformation, restorative justice, and spirituality that is grounded in Anabaptist faith and values."
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We are deeply grateful to Mennonite Health Services for opening the door for MHF to be able to offer STAR training and look forward to announcing a final date for the event!
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Here Cate speak briefly about the grant in the MHS announcement below:
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MHF Members Needed for Service!
A number of opportunities for service and provision of expertise have recently arisen through MHF. If any of these opportunities spark your interest, please reach out to Cate, cate@mennohealth.org!
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- Volunteer to take minutes at our next Board Visioning Retreat. The MHF Board is excited to gather for a Visioning Retreat on Zoom on May 22nd. Our wonderful Administrator, Andrew Metzler, is also a Board member and will be serving in his Board role during this retreat and thus we are seeking someone with availability that day to listen in and take thoughtful notes / minutes during our session confidentially. Availability from 9 am Eastern time to at least 4 pm Eastern time preferred (with breaks!). Final schedule to be determined.
- MHF and MMN seek a coordinator / administrator for the Mary Jean Yoder Endowment Fund as the current coordinary looks towards retirement. This is for very part-time service. We are seeking someone to build relationships with global healthcare providers and work with the Mary Jean Yoder Endowment committee to review, approve, and administer applications for funding. Read more about the Mary Jean Yoder Fund here.
- Seeking an expert on Climate Change, Racial Injustice, and Health. Do you have expertise in the intersection of these three areas? Please be in touch with Cate. We were recently asked if someone could speak on these topics, and we would like to know who in our membership has passion and expertise in this area!
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If you are interested in serving but these opportunities do not meet your interests and gifts, please see below for other ways to get involved with MHF!
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Being Anabaptist (...all the time)
I joined the Mennonite church in my early 20s. I could tell a lot of stories as to why and what drew me, but after a lot of reflection, I really believe the heart of what drew me to Anabaptism was the commitment I saw in Anabaptists around me to live out their faith in every area of life.
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One of the (many) reasons I think MHF is such a vital and incredible organization is that it is a rare place where Christians, and Anabaptist Christians, are invited to consider what it means to live out our faith in that often seperated and "secular" part of our lives - the workplace. Yet the more we explore faith and work, faith and medicine, the more we discover that there is a true abundance of connections to be made and insight and inspiration to be gained from our beliefs and faith.
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I'm excited that MHF is hosting an informal Zoom gathering on Saturday to explore this very question: what does it mean to you to be Anabaptist and a healthcare provider? How do you merge these identities? How does your healthcare career challenge your Anabaptist faith - and how does your faith challenge your career? Similarly, how does your faith uphold and inspire your practice?
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In this year (15 months!) like no other, it is vital that we reach into the fullness of who we are to discover the wellsprings of authentic hope that can come from our faith. Provider burnout is at an all time high, and though my research brain could spout a lot of statistics and data here about how working and serving out of our most authentic, and faithful, selves is one of the greatest protective factors against burnout - I don't think I need to drop statistics to convince us! We know this - deeply.
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Thank you for being a part of MHF, willing to engage these questions, dig to the heart of faith and practice, and support one another along the way!
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Mennonite Healthcare Fellowship
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Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.- Colossians 3:1-2
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10 Ways to Get Involved in the Mission of MHF
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10 Ways to Be More Involved with MFH
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Did you know that MHF is always looking for volunteers to help us further our mission? Here are 10 ways to serve with MHF, helping us fulfill our mission and building God's kingdom of Shalom of Healing.
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#1: Join a Subcommittee
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Our Development Committee and Global Services Group are actively seeking new members. Development helps us with fundraising and growth goals, and the Global Services Group helps administer our flagship program: Student Elective Term.
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#2: Submit an Article or Reflection for the Mennonite Healthcare Journal or our Blog
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We would love to receive articles from our members relating to their areas of expertise, how they integrate Anabaptist theological principles with their own healthcare vocations, and reflections on being a provider during the time of Covid. E-mail articles to journal@mennohealth.org
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#3: Become a peer-reviewer for the Mennonite Healthcare Journal
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We would love a few more peer reviewers for the Mennonite Healthcare Journal, particularly Chaplains, Public Health Providers, Dentists, and Psychologists/Psychiatrists.
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#4: Propose a Topic or Lead a Study Group
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Study Groups within MHF reflect together on a topic of interest to Anabaptists serving in Healthcare Professions.
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#5: Propose a session for a Virtual Gathering
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Is there a topic that deeply interests you and connects to an Anabaptist healthcare vocation? Let us know!
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#6: "Coffee with Cate"
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Our Executive Director, Cate, loves getting to know our members over virtual Zoom 'chats'. She would love to hear your story of being an Anabaptist in healthcare. You can schedule here.
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#7: Share about MHF in your Congregation
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With Churches meeting mostly via Zoom and online formats right now, it's a great time to ask for 5 minutes to share about the mission of Mennonite Healthcare Fellowship with your congregation. We are happy to provide materials for this purpose. Consider asking if MHF can be a part of a special offering taken for mission within your congregation.
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#8: Register for one of our Upcoming Virtual Gatherings
Watch our website for announcements!
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#9: "Shoulder Tap" a Student or Early-Career healthcare provider
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Invite them to join MHF and take advantage of our SET Program and our Stephen Roth Grants for cross-cultural service.
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#10: Consider whether you may be called to a period of international service with MHFs support
If you are a student, inquire about our SET program. We are glad to provide guidance as to possible sites for service. If you are a professional, consider our Stephen Roth Memorial Grant program. New opportunities for Chaplains to serve abroad have recently become available as well.
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