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Mission work came home to Kris Zoeller last year. The 53-year-old grandmother is neither a medical professional nor a missionary. So she never envisioned how personally she would be fulfilling the Great Commission. But when she began volunteering for the Global Missions Health Conference seven years ago and watching the event grow to become the largest of its kind in the world, Zoeller also began to grow spiritually — and so did her family. Last year she adopted two 3-year-old children from Azerbaijan, a small Muslim country just north of Iran.

Zoeller said the decision to adopt came not only out of love and sympathy, but out of a shift in perspective. The Zoellers are raising children in a Christian home hoping they will one day fulfill the Great Commission themselves.

"We're hoping they go back to their own country as missionaries," Zoeller said. She credits her new outlook on missions to the Global Missions Health Conference. "Because of this conference I've become more interested in missions," she said.

This story and all the great free content on Church Central is supported by: Authentic Media Some of the world's top minds and hearts help us respond with appropriate biblical passion to the plague of our time. The Hope Factor - Engaging the Church in the HIV/AIDS Crisis

Working with the exhibitors, some 126 of whom pack out the annual event, to be held this year at Southeast Christian Church Nov. 10-12, she said she has been impressed. "These people are just the most incredible people you'll meet. They have dedicated their lives to Jesus Christ and are serving people all over the world and in the U.S. They really just want to touch people, not only with physical healing but spiritually."

Missions perspective

It is that inspiration, motivation and change in perspective that conference organizer, Dr. David Dageforde, hopes for in the event. The retired interventionist cardiologist began organizing the conference in 1996. His goal was to shift paradigms and perceptions through exciting speakers and exposure.

"This whole conference is about exposure," he said, "exposure to teaching, exposure to people in the field and networking."

The exhibit halls alone are one-stop-shopping for church leaders interested in ramping up a lagging missions program or beginning a new program from scratch. "If I'm a church of 100 how do I gear up for missions," Dageforde said. "I come here and network. Look at the exhibitors and how you could send your own team of six somewhere with a group."

HIV/AIDS and the Church's response

Dageforde is also hoping to open up new missions opportunities for churches through ministry to those affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The disease Dageforde calls "the plague of the 21st Century," became the subject of a pre-conference last year and will again be discussed this year, because Dageforde said he doesn't hear enough from churches about AIDS.

"The North American church is lagging tremendously," Dageforde said. "Do we hear about it [HIV/AIDS] from the pulpit or understand the devastation? And what are we doing about it?"

In addition to the pre-conference and various workshops and speakers addressing the HIV/AIDS issue, Dageforde collaborated with Tetsunao Yamamori, award-winning author of "On Kingdom Business," and Tina Bruner, director of missions at Southeast, to edit a book on the subject. Compiled from the ideas of experts connected to the conference, the editors hope the book will pick up where the conference discussion leaves off.

The book is entitled, "The Hope Factor: Engaging the Church in the HIV/AIDS Crisis," was released Oct. 15, 2004, from Authentic Media.

Dr. Russ Summay diagnoses an Afghan woman during an August  mobile medical clinic in Kabul, Afghanistan, sponsored by SOZO International.

"Many of the writers are or have been speakers at the Global Missions Health Conference," Bruner said. "They have experience that the Church can really use." She said the book, like the conference, is a way to educate and motivate.

"I hope it will make people more aware of really how devastating HIV and AIDS has been, not only in Africa, but in many parts of the world. It's affecting families and communities and economies."

The book also reports some of the response to the crisis from churches. Bruner said she hopes more churches will be "inspired to do something that will really be a positive witness for what Christ would have us do as the Church."

Dageforde sees the Church's response to HIV/AIDS as the greatest opportunity for world evangelism in centuries. "Ravi Zacharias said, ‘If the church of Jesus Christ rises to the challenge of HIV/AIDS it will be the greatest apologetic the world has ever seen.' I think that sums it up. I really feel strongly about that."

Growing conference

The annual three-day conference has grown from 200 to 1,600. It attracts medical professionals and students, church leaders and missionaries from around the world.

"I think the whole reason the conference is growing is because it shows the many different opportunities for medical people and non-medical people to serve God in their profession - short, intermediate and long-term," Dageforde said.

Workshops and plenary sessions feature heavy hitters in the missions field such as: Prison Fellowship International; Ken Casey, special representative to the President, HIV/AIDS Hope Initiative and World Vision International; and Joni Eareckson Tada of Joni and Friends and Wheels for the World.

Tada spoke in 2004 about her work making the world more accessible through disability ministry. A quadriplegic since 1967, Tada's organization, Wheels for the World, donated its 25,000th wheelchair in 2004. Tada travels extensively to speak for groups such as Operation EquipIndia, and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.

If the church of Jesus Christ rises to the challenge of HIV/AIDS it will be the greatest apologetic the world has ever seen. -- Ravi Zacharias

Medical missions also provides access to countries that are otherwise closed to the gospel. "You can go in as a teacher or a businessman," Dageforde said, "and in no way am I negating that, but Jesus' model was caring for the whole person. You take care of those physical needs and then address the spiritual needs."

That pairing also translates well to community health care and mission work with the urban poor Ã¢â‚¬â€ another area addressed at the conference. One of the 98 workshops offered during the conference is: "Integrating Spiritual and Physical Diagnosis into One," taught by Dr. Harvey Elder, a professor of medicine at Loma Linda University and consultant at the HIV/AIDS Clinic in San Bernardino County Department of Public Health. And for churches interested in a new ministry: "How to Start, Maintain and Resource a ‘Free' Christian Clinic," will be taught by Dr. Tom Rose, DDS, chief operations officer at the Family Christian Health Center in Harvey, Ill.

Dozens of other workshops and speakers round out the conference with a resounding message of holistic missions partnering churches, communities, cultures with physical and spiritual healing, after Christ's own model.

"For so many years missions was about saving the souls and walking away," Dageforde said. "That's not what Jesus did."

More information about the Global Missions Health Conference.