The American doctor hummed “Stayin’ Alive” softly to the young Armenian medic kneeling on the floor administering CPR. Her confidence increased as she caught the beat, and the green light on the practice manikin lit up. She smiled, despite feeling tired and sweat running down her face. She was doing chest compressions correctly.

CPR training courses like this one are unique in Eastern Europe. It’s not every day you can earn an American certification, even for local health professionals. Dr. Paul Crane, a global health consultant with the International Mission Board (IMB), recently trained doctors, nurses, medics, local church members, schoolteachers and IMB missionaries.

Send Relief and IMB’s global health strategies partnered to bring CPR, emergency cardiovascular care (ECC) and advanced life support training and certifications to Eastern Europe. National pastors made local connections and invited their medical communities and others who might benefit. Local believers served as translators, allowing a way to openly share the gospel.

“Strategies like this meet physical and spiritual needs,” Crane said. “The local believers used this hands-on training to show their greater community that the church cares for the body, soul and spirit.”

Southern Baptists’ gifts to the Dr. Naylor Preach & Heal through Medicine Fund equipped the workshops with first aid supplies, AED (automated external defibrillator) trainers and everything else needed for the Armenians to gain certifications. This included four adult and four infant CPR manikins.

The manikins helped simulate emergency scenarios. It measured compression force and rhythm. As an occupational therapist and teacher practiced switching off compressions when someone became tired, she wondered aloud how anyone could keep going at that pace until help arrived.

“Don’t worry,” Crane smiled knowingly. “When the time comes, you’ll have adrenaline.”

Across the room, laughter erupted as Pam Allsbrook, a nurse from Conway, South Carolina, used her bad acting skills as The Fonz to break through the language barrier. She raised two thumbs to show how to give compressions on the infant manikin.

Allsbrook said training and empowering the local church is always the highlight of medical trips for her.

“This was a true partnership with the local church,” she said about the joint project between Send Relief and IMB’s global health strategies. “Each of us used our complementary skills to show and tell about Jesus’ love.” Crane added that Southern Baptists’ gifts to the Dr. Naylor Preach & Heal through Medicine Fund will keep on giving through these connections and through the certification and first aid supplies that were left behind in Eastern Europe. It will be used by health care workers Crane and Allsbrook trained for future workshops.

“Our IMB medical professionals and partners are now qualified to host more trainings, providing a unique way to open access to the gospel in many closed communities,” Crane said. “Health care strategies like this allow us to equip, train and mobilize medical professionals.”

Learn more about combining health care with ministry strategies to provide gospel access in unreached communities at MedAdvance 2024. Join health care professionals, students and church leaders Sept. 12-14 at Houston’s First Baptist Church in Houston, Texas and be a part of providing help and hope to those who have never heard the gospel.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Sue Sprenkle writes for the IMB. Some names may have been changed for security.)