GroshLink

Another year of ministry with Penn State Hershey Christian Medical Society (CMS)/CMDA.  Wow!  Looking forward to all the ministry pictures, student testimonies, conversations with partners in ministry at tonight's over a potluck cooked up by the students. To God be the glory!  Lots of pictures and stories coming. 

Here's what one PSU-Hershey alumnus wrote after visiting CMS in the fall.  Thank-you for your support in this mission!

I had the privilege to meet with the Penn State Hershey medical students at their lunchtime fellowship of the Christian Medical Association (CMA) this past November.  I graduated from the same medical school in 1988, and have had the opportunity to return only very infrequently since then.  Much has changed.  Many acres of soybean and corn fields surrounding the hospital complex have since disappeared as the growing hospital complex has sprawled outwards.  I wondered about the spiritual condition of this place.  In the face of intensive academic and scientific progress in a post-modern society, was there still a surviving, relevant spiritual voice?

Over twenty years ago, about 10-12 Christian medical students met once weekly in the student apartments in University Manor, beside the hospital.  We worshipped and sang, studied the Word together, and prayed for each other.  Most often, I felt I really didn’t have time for this meeting.  However I almost always went anyway, and consistently was glad that I had, for the renewed vigor, passion, and direction which we experienced as we called on the Lord together.

Having made the connection again to Penn State via Helen, a long time friend from Philadelphia, I was glad to be invited by med student Isaac to return as a guest.  To my surprise, 40 or more students converged in a the lecture hall on the first floor for their weekly meeting.  Penn State CMA is not only alive and well, but had even grown to three times the size that I remembered!  Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ, a partnering community church had donated and prepared the lunch, which the students eagerly consumed.  The students listened attentively as I shared about the work of Esperanza Health Center, the health ministry where I work in North Philadelphia.  This was followed by insightful questions and prayer, and then the students promptly returned to their afternoon lectures.

As a student at Penn State there was little to no faculty or community leadership or mentorship.  A couple of times a year, a CMA regional director was able to make contact with us, and that was about it.  Now there are a couple of faculty physicians including Helen, who have taken an interest in the students, and pursue them in a variety of ways.

It was very exciting to discover that Tom Grosh, as part of InterVarsity’s outreach to graduate campuses, has for the last two years been mentoring medical students via Penn State’s CMA fellowship.  Medical school is a difficult time for most.  Students are confronted with an avalanche of information to absorb.  They face a prevalent secular humanistic philosophy, and macro-evolutionary explanations for the intricacies of the human body are presented as factual.  Student’s families are strained as they walk alongside.  There may be little respect for individual conscience, and possibly overt ridicule of Christian beliefs. I am so blessed to see that there is now an InterVarsity/CMA staff person available to the students who loves the Lord and is compassionate, yet is well-read and deeply thoughtful, who can provide support, encouragement, and help the students think through issues which conflict with their faith. I believe that students who are mentored in this way will grow can thrive spiritually through medical school, and go on to become powerful witnesses as their faith informs their medical practice and ministries in the future. I pray that many of these mentored students, seeing this vision, will themselves become mentors in the future! -- Bryan Hollinger, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Esperanza Health Center.