“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Matthew 25:40
GMMA January 2020 Monthly Newsletter
President’s Greeting
Dear GMMA Family
Happy New Year! I look forward to witnessing how God will move among us in 2020. Let us move forward in great excitement in faith. It’s been five years already since we started this ministry under the banner of GMMA. I am so humbled to witness what the Lord has done. We have touched over 50 colleges and 42 of them remain as active chapters in US, Canada, and Australia. There are over 300 GMMA professionals, young and old, across the nation serving together alongside the students in His name. Over 25 short term mission trips were carried out in 2019. These are just a few statistical numbers but within the numbers are greater number of testimonies of His amazing love.
Let me share few more numbers that moved me. During 2019, I had the privilege to visiting 35 GMMA campus chapters. I was honored to witness what the Lord has done for these young minds. I met 188 officers of 35 chapters and learned that: 100% of them attend church, 65% of them serve at their churches, 84% of them said they do quiet time more than 4 times a week, and 94.5% of them said they consider themselves a born-again Christian. It is an amazing discovery that the Lord has had His eyes upon us!! We are hopeful for God is moving in the midst of our students blessing and equipping them for His purpose.
A sincere expression of gratitude goes out to the professionals serving with tireless, selfless dedication in many aspects of the ministry. You have coordinated and served on mission trips, you have invested your time to mentor students, you gathered for monthly prayer meetings, and so much more. Be encouraged and look forward to hearing “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40.
As we start a new year, I pray we unite our hearts and our dedications on a new level to further refine and reform this ministry of living a Christ centered missional life for His glory. Please remember we do it together, not just by a few. Each of you matter and each of your gifts have a place in this ministry. We have new ministry initiatives in our student chapters that are in development, new ideas of engaging our gap year students, and alternative approaches for short term mission trips. I believe these are some of His vision for GMMA 2020. Please join me in active engagement.
Lastly, special for 2020 is the upcoming biennial national conference. We are working hard and praying for His presence to be great. We look forward to witnessing fruitful networking synergy that leads to greater mobilization of medical missions to the nations! We thank our amazing ministry partners for making this possible. As I pray about the coming decade, I sense more than ever, we need greater collaboration to maximize God’s ministry, at home and abroad. Let us come together for our Global Mission Conference in July 2020 in Irvine, California and proclaim together, “Be Thou, Jesus, Be Our Vision”.
In His Service,
Peter Chung, Sr., M.D.
Conference News!
Featured Speaker: Dr. Mitch Duininck
Dr. Duininck is the CEO of In His Image International and Good Samaritan Health Services. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Family Medicine. He has done medical missions in many countries, including India, Kenya, Ghana, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, Russia, Romania, and the Czech Republic. Dr. Duininck’s family served as medical missionaries at Manna Mission Hospital in Ghana, West Africa, for two years and one year in Kabul, Afghanistan to help train Afghan physicians in the Hope Family Medicine Afghanistan residency program.
We have over 25 wonderful guest speakers at the conference!
Register early at conference.gmma7.org
Missions
From December 16th to December 19th, the University of Washington, University of Pacific, University of California, Davis, and Northwestern University GMMA chapters, led by Dr. David Choi, went down to Tijuana and Ensenada Mexico for the December 2019 mission trip. The mission team had about 50 people, 35 of them being was undergraduate students, and the rest being postgraduate students or healthcare professionals. We were blessed and fortunate to have medical doctors, pharmacy students, acupuncturist, dental student and physical therapist join us for this trip. The group was split into two teams, one being a clinical focused group and the other focused on children’s ministry. On the last day, the entire team visited a hospice and had the opportunity to pray and perform skits to the patients there. Throughout the trip, the team had a prayer request which was to work as a unified body, and this was especially important on this trip due to the significantly large size of the group. Not only were we able to work together efficiently as a team, God also blessed us all with brothers and sisters who we can rely on outside of the trip. The students of UW were especially blessed, as most individuals on the trip had never been on a missions trip before. Now this trip has provided them such a large heart for missions not just in Mexico but also back at home.
– Philip Lee, U of Washington Vice President
Mission coordinator, Audrey Park, made a great recap of the trip. Watch it and get blessed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Qby3i-pss&feature=emb_logo
For future mission trip dates and opportunities, please visit our website:
https://www.gmma7.org/missions/mission-opportunities/
JOIN US!
Please make sure to use Amazon Smile so that a percentage of your purchase comes back to GMMA/Kamhc incorporated in the form of a donation.
Simply click on this link: smile.amazon.com/ch/26-0268289 and start shopping through smile.amazon.com!
There are many incredible ministries and organizations you can choose to support through Amazon Smile, so we thank you in advance for choosing to support GMMA and partnering with us to help others smile through His kingdom work!
Regional Health Reports
WEST COAST
Praise report
Praise God for the work He has done through the January 13-16 Mexico team led by Dr. David Choi. Seventeen Berkeley students and one San Jose State University student, along with fourteen postgrads and professionals, came back safely after serving in Tijuana and Ensenada, Mexico, for four days. Praise God for His faithfulness and may His will continue to be established in the hearts of these students and the people we had served in Mexico! Look out for a more formal missions report!
Needs
Please pray for our upcoming Vision 2020 event this month as will be a time to reflect on our ministries, renew our vision for the future and be introduced to the upcoming 2020 national conference. We pray for a time of fellowship and unity in the Lord where everyone can come together to give Him our hearts in the beginning of this new year.
Regional Coordinator Message:
I desire for 2020 to be a year of more blessings for the entire GMMA community. A theme that has stuck with me from 2019 was the topic of discipline. More and more I am learning how God uses the disciplined, not the lazy. With discipline I believe that we will see the desires of hearts come to fruition. I pray and hope that we may all seek the Lord daily and experience the joy of serving God and being used by him for his glory!
CENTRAL
Praise Report:
The Central Region started its year strong with a mission trip to Mexico. This trip was by far the biggest mission trip from the Central Region with 81 members including the mentors. At first, we were worried about team unity and other logistical factors, but our God has been too gracious. A lot of the mission team members were going on a mission trip for their first time, and they were able to connect with brothers and sisters with a heart for God’s kingdom and mission work, and they saw God work firsthand. Coming back from the mission trip, I heard from the presidents that the members were so on fire for God and GMMA. All glory to our wonderful Father! In addition, the officers of each chapter came together before the start of this new semester, and they each came up with a new 2020 goal. These servants are on fire and are ready to serve God!
Regional Outreach & Needs:
More than anything right now, we need prayer. Prayers for the fire that God has placed in the hearts of the mission trip members to not wither. Prayers for our leaders to not be blinded by business or any temptation from the evil one, but that they would have clear vision for their 2020 goals.
Regional Coordinator Message:
As I reflect on 2019, I can’t help but reflect on the last four years of college. God has molded and shaped a self-seeking immature freshman into a love-stricken son who realized his unworthiness, which only magnifies His grace and mercy. God has been so good to me, and this year, God has challenged me to share that love radically and selflessly. If you are reading this, please lift up a short prayer for me that I may just simply ABIDE so hard that I may bear His fruit.
EAST COAST
Praise Report:
Many chapters on the East Coast have kicked off the year preparing for mission trips this winter and spring. The New York chapters (NYU, Binghamton, and Cornell) went to Honduras from Jan 11-16. This was a time filled with incredible joy interacting with the children and people of Honduras. The students were able to grow closer as brothers and sisters through sharing their vulnerabilities, reminding one another that Jesus is enough and accepts them as they are. They were also able to learn/reaffirm that their career isn’t what defines them, that they could be faithful servants in whatever path God leads them to. In addition to missions, each chapter has been preparing for other semester activities, including fundraisers, local outreach/service events, health panels, and more. God has also led a group of sisters at Thomas Jefferson University to form a GMMA chapter at their campus!
Regional Outreach & Needs:
Please pray that students preparing for missions with do so with a joyful heart and a passion to serve God’s children, and that they would grow in love and patience for each other through the trainings and during the mission trips. Please pray for new chapters and those in the process of getting started, that all those involved would submit faithfully to His guidance.
Regional Coordinator Message:
Some common themes I encountered in monthly president meetings and other conversations with students and postgraduates during the fall semester are uncertainty and the tiredness/burnout that comes from being a student. Many officers have shared about feeling burdened, distant from God, anxiety in their futures, and many other struggles. There have been many times during my four years in college and in the past six months studying for the MCAT where I experienced the same struggles. But God reminds me through Isaiah 26:3, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed in you, because he trusts in you.” Please pray that, in this new year and new semester, we would all be reminded that in our wholehearted trust in His provisions and grace, we will find perfect peace in the midst of busyness, uncertainty, and hardship.
Chapter Feature
You can explore all of the GMMA chapters, including information about the leadership, meeting times, contact, Instagram handles and more, on our website here.
If you know any healthcare professionals who would gladly serve as mentors for these chapters, please email us at admin@gmma7.org.
Professional Development
We thank the Lord for how He has allowed cross-generation of professionals to serve together through the GMMA family. We reflect on our thankfulness of 2019 through a short compilation and look forward to what God has in store for us in 2020.
December was highlighted by mission trips and special Christmas fellowship and prayer meeting.
Prayer Requests
Please click below for the Student and Staff prayer requests.
Upcoming Events & Announcements
GMMA’s Biennial Medical Conference July 17-18, 2020
Save the date!
We have started to prepare for next year’s conference! Please pray and serve together. We need everyone’s help to bring the world together. We thank Conrad for making the infomercial for us!
Share with others.
GMMA’s Biennial medical conference dates are set for 7/17-18/2020.
- Register early!
- Great main speakers like Pastor Francis Chan, Dr. Dan Jones, Dr. Anne Alaniz along with over 30 workshops, career counseling, and personal meetings with missionaries/mission organizations.
- If you would like to volunteer to serve at the 2020 conference contact gmmaconference@gmma7.org
SUMMER MISSION TRIPS
- Mexico (leaving from Texas): 5/28 – 5/31 (Yong Sik Kim, MD)
- Mexico (leaving from Southern California): 7/19 – 7/22. Postconference trip for out of state participants (David Choi, MD)
- Honduras: 7/31-8/5 (Yong Sik Kim, MD)
- Malawi: 8/6 – 8/15/. Sarang Community Church/GMMA. About 5 students each from SRCC and GMMA in addition to professionals (David Choi, MD)
- Albania: 8/21 – 8/29. GMMA Professionals/postgrads only. 10-15 members. (Seyoung Oh, OMD)
- Cambodia: 8/29 – 9/5. Oriental Mission Church/GMMA. (Sang-Hoon Ahn, MD)
- Please follow the dates and places of the mission trips on the website gmma7.org and contact missions@gmma7.org if you would like to join us or for any questions.
Interested in becoming a GMMA mentor?
- Please contact mentors@gmma7.org to inquire about serving as a mentor to any of the 40 campus chapters.
Until next time,
Please share about KAMHC & GMMA and let us all remember to Arise and Shine for His glory.
Global Medical Missions Alliance | 714.444.3032 | admin@gmma7.org | GMMA7.org