A British nurse, Sheila Leech, was recently named vice president of international healthcare of HCJB Global in the U.S.-based mission’s first ever vice presidency of healthcare ministries.
The announcement by HCJB Global President Wayne Pederson carries with it some additional “firsts” as well: the mission’s first vice president who is at once female and European—with experience in various aspects of healthcare, primarily in Latin America but in recent years, elsewhere in the world.
“We are increasingly recognizing the strategic role that human care is playing in our global strategy to declare and demonstrate the love of Christ,” said Pederson.
Leech said she is “still very much an active, hands-on person, so my perception of what is needed to reach people for Christ through healthcare ministry is a result of firsthand experience.”
She sees the mission’s Africa Hands and Voice project as a wonderful example of HCJB Global Hands and HCJB Global Voice complementing each other and working in synergy. Additionally, emergency medical response teams that she’s led have provided “unique and wonderful opportunities to really get alongside of suffering people in their time of great need.”
Sheila Leech
It has excited Leech to work with Ecuadorian healthcare professionals in 11 different countries, and she sees this as dovetailing with the mission’s new initiative to fully engage Latin Americans in missions.
“They have all done well, and our dream is to be able to send more and more to different places—hopefully for long term.” She said the new missionary mobilizing drive, Corrientes, will play a key role in this.
“We can offer Corrientes candidates the opportunity to serve alongside us in healthcare projects in many places,” added Leech, hailing from Solihull in the West Midlands region of Great Britain.
Begun in 1931 as a broadcasting ministry, the mission later added healthcare and leadership development. Presently the healthcare ministry, called HCJB Global Hands, operates two hospitals, several clinics and a community development outreach in Ecuador.
The mission has also sent emergency medical response teams to disaster zones in the Asia Pacific Region and in the Americas since 2005 and conducted mobile medical clinics on the Indian subcontinent and in West Africa. Leech led most of these teams.
[...] care is all about symptom control—pain relief and quality of life,” explained Sheila Leech**, HCJB Global’s vice president of international healthcare. “We pray for the patients, many who are going through chemotherapy and [...]
By: Medical Clinic in Quito Brightens Lives of Hospice Patients « Calloftheandes Weblog on January 30, 2012
at 2:47 pm
WooHoo!!! The right person for the right job for such a time as this!
By: Janine on April 21, 2010
at 3:52 pm
Congratulations Sheila on becoming First Vice Presedent of Health Care. I am sure that you will do a great job in your new role.
By: David Tippett on April 18, 2010
at 5:59 am
Congratulations and blessings to you, Sheila!! I love to read and hear all HCJB Global Hands is doing in so many countries! So thrilled for you!
By: Flo Friesen on April 17, 2010
at 10:36 pm
Increased Kingdom clout, no doubt.
Rich blessings be upon you and in you and through you, dear lady Sheila.
By: Susan Olsen on April 14, 2010
at 7:09 pm
HCJB continues to make the right decisons for the Kingdom, we must heal, feel and hear as we do this our ministry reaches bodies, souls and hearts. May God specifically give Sheila Leech the energy to do His work.
By: Greg Markovich on April 8, 2010
at 4:07 pm