Hospital Trip turns into Missions lesson

You never know what God can teach you out of the most unusual circumstances. On the way to Taiwan to teach in the SBS there, I began to feel not well on the airplane. If you are in missions, there is one guarantee: you will become ill at some point on an airplane. There is nothing as fun as being trapped for 11 hours straight on an airplane not feeling well, especially if it is causing some gastro-intestinal issues (ahem.....) After arriving in Taiwan, it was clear that I needed to see a doctor. They have an amazing, nationalized health care system in Taiwan, so my friend Scott took me to the hospital to see what was going on. As we were waiting in the beautiful new hospital, I noticed that there were Scriptures from the Bible in huge letters on the walls of the hospital. I asked Scott how that happened. He began to tell me the story of Dr. Mackay, an early missionary to Taiwan. Due to his influence, they had named hospitals after him in Taiwan, and put Bible verses on the walls of the hospital. I began to think of the wonderful influence of this man. In a nation dominated by Buddhism, you have Christian Scriptures and this worldview of health permeating their culture.

Dr. Mackay was born in Zola Village, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada on March 21, 1844. Even as a small child, he felt the call of Christ and wanted to become a missionary. Thus on March 9, 1872, the Canadian Presbyterian Church commissioned him to go to Taiwan as a medical missionary. In 1880, Dr. Mackay founded the Mackay Clinic in Tamshui, which was the first Western hosital in the northern part of Taiwan. It was here in the humble surroundings of Tamshui that Dr. Mackay treated many patients while at the same time proclaiming the good news of Christ.

They treated patients suffering from a host of diseases such as malaria, which was a significant problem at that time. Besides treating patients, Dr. Mackay often preached and took teams of Taiwanese Christians with him on his medical and evangelistic tours in northern Taiwan. With the Bible in one hand and forceps in the other, he often defied mountains, rivers and jungle overgrowth to do medical evangelism.

Although practicing medicine and evangelizing Taiwan was very difficult work at that time, Dr. Mackay endured for over 30 years. During this time, he not only pulled over 20,000 teeth, but also proclaimed the Gospel to many different people around the island. In fact, he established more than 60 churches and baptized more than 4,000 believers. On June 2, 1901, Dr. George Leslie Mackay died of throat cancer in Tamshui.

It turned out that I had a virus, so there was nothing they could actually do to help me. Yet, God used this time to impress on me the beauty of missions, and how this one man and his family impacted not only his generation, but all the way to our present time. With Bible in one hand, and forceps in the other, Dr. Mackay is a great example of how we should be reaching the nations with truth and mercy ministries. So, next time you become ill, who knows what God will teach you through that time?