John Cropsey Headshot 2024

Dr. John Cropsey

Serving at Rwanda International Institute of Ophthalmology in Rwanda

Dr. John Cropsey grew-up at a rural mission hospital in Togo, West Africa, where his parents served as medical missionaries. John later attended the University of Michigan for his undergraduate and medical school training, followed by ophthalmology residency at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia (2009) and a two-year global ophthalmology fellowship at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya with Dr. Ben Roberts (2011). From 2011 to 2021, he and his wife, Jessica, led a team developing a teaching hospital for Hope Africa University in Burundi. In 2022, John joined the Rwanda International Institute of Ophthalmology where he serves as faculty and the Director of Global Ophthalmology and Institutional Development. John’s passion is empowering the next generation of ophthalmologists in the Great Lakes region of Africa to be the hands and feet of Jesus for the blind through Serge’s Eye Love Africa Project. John and Jessica have three children – Elise, Micah and Sam.

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.