Melissa_Headshot

Melissa Warner

Melissa grew up as a Third Culture Kid (TCK) with an American passport in Ukraine and Austria. She joined Cornerstone’s counseling staff in 2024 as a child and adolescent therapist with a passion to serve TCKs and their families. Melissa was trained in counseling and play therapy at Wheaton College Graduate School (2016) and continued training to receive her Registered Play Therapist license (2022). Prior to working in Thailand, Melissa worked in private practice and community mental health settings for seven years. Her training and experience in research-based Child-Centered Play Therapy allows her to work with children as young as 18 months old. Melissa loves using expressive therapies to help each child and teenager process their lives in the most developmentally appropriate ways so that the whole family can thrive.

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.