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Jim Ritchie

Dr. Jim Ritchie is an Emergency Physician who served 25 years in the US Navy including two deployments to the war in Afghanistan, and seven years as Emergency Medicine Residency Director. He then served six years as a medical missionary in Chogoria, Kenya, helping start a Christian Family Medicine program. He has a personal interest in helping healthcare missionaries thrive in the challenging context of cross-cultural medicine. He and his wife, Martha, have six children, ages 33 to 18. At MedRefresh Retreats, Jim teaches in the morning programs, and is available in the afternoons for informal conversations about whatever is on your heart.

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.