World Witness, the Board of Foreign Missions of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, is an evangelical denominational missions organization in the Reformed tradition. Actively involved in missions since 1839, World Witness now ministers in seven countries and has further outreach beyond those locations. Primary ministries include evangelism, church planting, discipleship, education, and nurture of churches in other nations, as well as humanitarian assistance in medicine, relief, agriculture, addiction programs for alcoholics and narcotics, and pioneering ministries in restricted access countries.

The medical programs of World Witness are largely focused in Christian Hospital, Sahiwal, Pakistan. Christian Hospital, established in 1915, has developed into a full general 140-bed hospital with medical, surgical, and public health programs, as well as a fully accredited school of nursing and a girls’ hostel. The hospital has a 16-bed ICU, 20 private rooms, 3 operating rooms, a labor and delivery suite, x-ray, ultrasound, endoscopic and laproscopic equipment, lab, pharmacy, casting room, emergency room, outpatient department, and chapel.  Courtyards are available to patients, as it is space for relatives to cook food for patients, and there are separate wards and waiting areas for men and women.  Though open to all segments of society, the hospital primarily serves the poor and disadvantaged.

Sahiwal is a city of 250,000 people, four hours southwest of Lahore.  The hospital facilities have been re-renovated and are updated regularly with new equipment. Foreign staff was evacuated post-September 11, 2001, and now conditions within the Sahiwal region allow us to answer the call of the church in Pakistan and hospital authorities for recruitment of desperately needed medical personnel.

Required personnel should be evangelical in their Christian faith and it is necessary to hold specialty training in surgery, internal medicine, general or family practice, obstetrics, pediatrics, or orthopedics.  Also needed are:  nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, physician assistants, nurse anesthesia, operating room nurses, and nursing schoolteachers.  Short-term, as well as long-term assignments, are available.

Is it safe to go to Pakistan right now?

Executive Director of World Witness, Frank van Dalen (served 12 years in Karachi), writes:
It is the middle of November 2007. By the time you receive this article, the situation in Pakistan might have changed completely. Things are that fluid. But it is also true that, if you were to read a ten-year-old Pakistani newspaper, you would be amazed at how much is the same. As one Pakistani friend recently told me, "If we don't have major government crisis every ten years, then we start to worry." Pakistan is a land of political confusion.

This leads to two questions: Is it wise to be in Pakistan at the present time? And, how will the current crisis affect our work in the future? The first question relates to the safety of our missionary personnel. The second question affects our planning. In both cases, we need to base our decisions on the principles laid out for us in the Word of God.

At our fall 2007 meeting, the World Witness Board we looked at five biblical principles related to risk-taking. These help us to decide if and when to withdraw missionaries from dangerous places. Some of the principles for biblical risk-taking are:
1. It begins with the recognition of God's power.
2. It has confidence in the Lord's responding to our prayers.
3. It expects the devil's opposition - even to the point of tragedy, but never defeat.
4. It takes risks for a godly purpose.
5. It has a God-focused eternal perspective on life.
With these principles in mind, we make daily assessments of the situation in Pakistan and decide on the course of action during a period of confusion. Bear in mind that, no matter how prudent we are, we will never be able to provide 100 percent protection for those who serve in the name of the Lord.

Sahiwal, Pakistan, where most of our work is based, is a small city similar to Greenville, SC. It is on the main road between two major cities (Lahore and Multan) just as Greenville is on the main road between Atlanta and Charlotte. It has a population of about 250,000 people, which is about the same as the Greenville-Spartanburg area (although they are packed far more closely together in Sahiwal). It is surrounded by rural farmland. In other words, Sahiwal is not a place where events of great significance normally happen.

The insignificance of Sahiwal is one of the reasons why we feel that it is a relatively safe place for our missionaries to live during a time of confusion in Pakistan. The sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation reminds us that this time in history is a time when there are wars, famines, earthquakes and all manner of other disasters around the world. We cannot predict where these will be. But, I would venture to suggest that Sahiwal is one of the least likely places for anything dramatic to happen. It is not immune from disaster (no place is), but it is a relatively safe place in Pakistan.

And yet, one of the things that concerns me most about the current political battle between President Musharraf and Prime Minister-hopeful Benazir Bhutto is the fact that the real threat to Pakistan - Islamic extremism - is being ignored. Already much of the northeast part of the country is in the grip of Muslim radicals who are imposing a harsh Taliban-like regime upon the populace there. It's good, in one sense, that the "purer" Islam is, the more disillusioned people become, and become more open to the Gospel. But Islamic extremism could lead to more instability throughout the country.

I am not overwhelmed by that prospect. God often works in crisis. But remember to pray that, even though we must be prepared to pay any price for the sake of the Gospel (1 John 3:16), we also seek His mercy and protection upon our missionaries and His church in Pakistan.