In the class in home nursing and health preservation recently conducted for the New Orleans church, we found a blessing in giving special emphasis to soul winning as the main objective. The class was conducted to teach the members to use the "right arm" to enter the homes and the hearts of the people. The instruction was not limited to the classroom. Some of the members accompanied graduate nurses, or those who had had this work in previous classes, on calls to homes, and helped to give treatments. They listened as the worker taught the people the laws of health. Then they went alone and found someone to teach or treat. Those who could not accompany other workers were not idle, but found someone to whom they could impart their new-found knowledge, thus fixing it in their own minds and creating an appetite for more.
The closing exercises for the class consisted of a medical missionary program Sabbath at the eleven o'clock hour, and a series of demonstrations of treatments and other bedside care by the class members the evening after the Sabbath. The work still goes on, for the members of this and previous classes, and others who can care for the sick, are organized under a church missionary secretary. This secretary keeps a record of their activities. Church members, and those who need help, call in to arrange for someone to care for the patient.
Almost every member of the class has done some definitely medical missionary work at some time. They teach the Bible as they go. Some who have been helped were recently baptized, and others are planning to be baptized soon. We are told in the Spirit of prophecy:
"We have come to a time when every member of the church should take hold of medical missionary work."--"Testimonies," Vol. VP", p. 62.
"We should ever remember that the object of the medical missionary work is to point sin-sick men and women to the Man of Calvary, who taketh away the sin of the world."—"Ministry of Healing," p. 144.
