CHRISTMAS APPEAL 2025
ICMDA Training - £60,000 needed
The vision of ICMDA is ‘a Christian witness through doctors and dentists in every community in every nation’. We achieve this by ‘starting and strengthening national movements of Christian doctors and dentists’ – currently we have 107 affiliated national movements and at least a dozen more are expected formally to join ICMDA at our 18th World Congress in South Korea next year.
Growing Leaders
What is the key to starting and strengthening new movements? It is training, mentoring and empowering leaders.
That is why ICMDA puts such emphasis on training – through:
- Weekly global webinars (over 270 since 2020) on every topic imaginable at the interface of Christianity and medicine
- Training tracks (in leadership, evangelism, bioethics, missions, global health and much more) – over 200 hundred ten-week courses run in over ten languages since 2020
- Saline Process training on integrating faith and practice (over 70 trainings of at least 12 hours each run just this year)
- Diploma Courses – two-year distance learning courses in family medicine (now in four languages) and healthcare management (over 200 students currently)
Apart from the diploma courses (which are themselves highly subsidised) all this training is delivered free of charge to make it widely available to people in low-resource contexts all over the world. But it is not free to deliver. It depends on the dedicated work of ICMDA staff and volunteers. Let me tell you about some of them.
An Amazing Team
Nurgul is Associate Executive Officer (AEO) for Eurasia and also leads our global Disciple Making Ministry (DMM). Originally from Kyrgyzstan, she worked as a medical doctor in Pakistan - where she met her husband - and now lives in England, having recently gained British citizenship with her family. She speaks five languages fluently, can understand several others, and travels widely throughout the former Soviet Union and beyond teaching, training, discipling and encouraging young leaders.
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In 2023, she played a major role in guiding the national movements of Latvia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova through the membership process into ICMDA. In 2022 and 2023 she helped establish new movements in several Arabian Gulf countries as well as in Morocco. Nurgul is a ‘tentmaker’, raising her own support by working full-time as a hospital doctor, while we cover her travel and expenses. |
ICMDA has four other AEOs like Nurgul – equally gifted and committed – Hedwin (Asia and Oceania), Augustin (sub-Saharan Africa), Haniel (Americas) and Ella (Europe and MENA). Each of them travels widely and supports the trainers and administrators who deliver our training all over the world.
Santhosh, ICMDA Training Coordinator, is a physician based in India who spearheads the development and delivery of our diploma courses and training tracks. Santhosh was previously our South Asia regional secretary and now chairs the boards of the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI) and the United Mission to Nepal (UMN). His biggest passion is in developing young emerging leaders and investing his gifts in the next generation.
Santhosh and our five AEOs can function so fruitfully and effectively because of the support of a team of skilful administrators – Bhaskar (Asia), David (Africa), Marie (Americas) and Diana (Eurasia) – and a huge volunteer workforce of over 300 trainers and facilitators.
ICMDA’s Training Ministry
ICMDA’s vital training ministry is almost entirely reliant on financial support from individual doctors and dentists. Supporting this work through these vital staff, ‘tentmakers’ and volunteers will cost about £180,000 in 2026 – covering salaries, travel, expenses and development and translation of training resources. We would also like to expand it further by appointing more people to help them.
We are aiming to raise £60,000 for this work through this Christmas Appeal - one third of the annual total - and kindly request your assistance. Any amount, whether large or small, will be gratefully received and put to immediate use in supporting these faithful workers.
Augustin, Ella, Haniel, Hedwin
Your support is a powerful testimony to the value you place on mentoring medical and dental leaders, improving healthcare delivery, advancing medical missions, and the well-being of countless individuals in over 140 countries who benefit from our work. Together, we can ensure that the ICMDA continues to make a difference in the lives of people around the world.
For tax-efficient giving outside of the UK, please consider using TrustBridge:
Thank you for partnering with ICMDA and for helping us see a Christian witness
through doctors and dentist in every community and in every nation.
Yours sincerely in Christ Jesus,
Dr Peter Saunders
ICMDA Chief Executive
