Cheryl Warner

Cheryl Warner

Directees are invited to notice how God is present and active in their lives and to respond to him. Fresh insights and a deeper sense of God’s love and care often come as gifts in this sacred space. Gently listening to a person’s story with compassion and without judgment is a high value for me. Receiving spiritual direction has helped me process life transitions, wrestle with grief and loss, and go deeper with God. I completed the two-year certification program in the School of Spiritual Direction offered by Sustainable Faith, and I hold an MA in missions/intercultural studies from Wheaton College. My husband, Charley, and I have lived since 1987 in Ukraine, Austria, and the UK, and we have four adult daughters. After eighteen months of displacement from Ukraine because of the war, we plan to return soon to our home in Irpin, Ukraine. We are training a team of Ukrainian caregivers to help churches care for the cross-cultural workers they are sending around the world. I co teach a spiritual life course for Ukrainian missions students and love offering spiritual companionship to global workers on their journey with God.

Flourishing by Design: Imagining Medical Missions for 2040

Our predecessors faithfully built institutions that have served for generations. Our challenge is different. We have inherited those institutions into a world they could scarcely have imagined. Population growth, urbanization, changing disease patterns, financial pressures, conflict, climate shocks, and technological change are reshaping healthcare across low- and middle-income countries.

Drawing on new data about the Christian health ecosystem, strategic consultations with global and African Christian health leaders, and field experience across Africa and Asia, this session explores what it will take for Christian health ministries to flourish by 2040.

Together we’ll imagine what it will take for Christian health ministries to flourish by 2040, strengthening resilient institutions, cultivating exceptional local leadership, and mobilizing a broader range of Christian expertise from medicine and nursing to governance, education, engineering, finance, data science, and technology.

How can Christian health ministries become indispensable partners in building resilient health systems that reflect the compassion and hope of Christ? The legacy of the next generation of medical missions will be measured not only by the number of missionaries sent, but by the resilience, flourishing, and Christ-centered witness of systems they strengthen.