The College of Medical Evangelists is just such an educational center. The name Loma Linda, as the College of Medical Evangelists is often called, is synonymous with doctors, nurses, dietitians, and technicians; synonymous also with young people who have consecrated their talents, health, and youthful vigor to the service of the King of kings. Graduates from its seven schools flow out as streamers of light to brighten the darkest corners of earth with a message of hope and order to replace despair and chaos.
To illustrate how well known is Loma Linda: Over in Borneo, at our training school in Sarawak, a sixteen-year-old Chinese girl, one of the recipients of some clothing shipped from the Loma Linda Dorcas Society, penned a letter of gratitude. Not knowing to whom to direct it, she wrote on the envelope, "Miss Loma Linda, S.D.A., California." The letter reached Loma Linda intact and in record time.
The College of Medical Evangelists was founded to produce medical evangelists as the activities of Friday evening show. Throughout the week the student's time is systematically filled with studies, work, and week-day duties of varying types. But all secular business is laid aside as the Friday afternoon sun, like a great red ball, balances on the rim of the western hills and pauses for a moment before slipping into the night. Over all rests a quiet, extravagant splendor of mountains and valley and evening sky, that swells the heart with praise to the Creator. Writes Genevieve C. Norton, a former patient at the sanitarium, who is now a Sabbathkeeper
"The setting sun drops behind the western hills, and the quiet of the coming Sabbath settles down, as evening draws her curtain of amethyst and blue and purple haze over the distant hills. Then it is that the chimes of Loma Linda ring out in their beautiful harmony, 'Nearer My God to Thee.' Then it is that God is nearer to me, and in that quiet garden whose very beauty expresses God's love, God seems to walk and talk with me, and there it is that I consecrate my life more fully to service for Him. All is quiet—the stars come out in the heavens, one by one—as I listen—and I hear not the sound of a footstep around me, save God's, and my own."
This brief moment of quiet is broken by activities as different from week-day transactions as day is from night. Truly the dial is turned to another "broadcasting station"—even a heavenly.
Groups of students, supervised by experienced leaders, rotating week by week so that all may have opportunity to gain experience, take part in the sunset service, the inspirational service for patients in the sanitarium lounge which is carried by public address to the rooms and wards of the sick, and the Missionary Volunteer meeting—without which it could scarcely be Friday evening in any Seventh-day Adventist community.
On a Friday evening a few months ago the sunset service, under the leadership of Dr. L. H. Lonergan, associate professor of therapeutics at the medical school, was held as usual in Cutler Hall on the college campus. The main feature was "A Call From India,' presented in motion pictures by A. E. Nelson, pioneer missionary from India. This made real the stubborn fact that a thorough preparation before one goes to a foreign mission field cannot be overemphasized. Concluding, Elder Nelson said, "India is a wide-open land for your services."
On another occasion a silent and thoughtful audience of young people made their way across the campus to Burden Hall and the M.V. Society's meeting. It so happened on this Friday evening that thirteen graduate nurses were to present "Opportunities for Missionary Nurses at Home and Abroad." From the hills of the deep South, to Central America, to historic Nyasaland, and back to our own halls and wards at Loma Linda, they carried us in symposium and song. The speakers were returned missionaries or nurses active in the homeland. They pointed to the door, which may appear small, but which opens on a view of wide opportunities for the Master. "Lord, in even the smallest tasks may we see Thy leading," was the prayer stimulated by these talks.
If through the grind of week-day study and work a student may temporarily lose sight of his reasons for being at Loma Linda, his mind is brought back to the plan for his life by such clear-cut inspirational programs with which Loma Linda is so especially favored. Each experience, though clothed in dull, routine and tiresome repetition, is tutelage for the future.
Nor could Friday evening be complete without prayer and literature bands, choir practice, and students who repair to the quiet of their rooms to add finishing touches to the part they are to take in the Sabbath services in small churches nearby.
Thus another Sabbath is ushered in. "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established." Prov. 4:25, 26.
Said the parents of one nurse, as they bade her farewell at the pier where she was to embark for a foreign mission station: "Of course, we mind having her leave us! But when we sent her to a Seventh-day Adventist college we expected her to do this!'
When young people, backed by parents with a vision, come to the College of Medical Evangelists for a preparation as leaders in the service of the Master, they need not fail of attaining their goal. Skilled instructors are dedicated not only to keep this goal before them but to help them reach it.
