A Life of Healing
Sometimes, God’s plans take awhile to fulfill. Dr. Andrew Brink* felt a calling as a teen to be a missionary, but it wasn’t until after he graduated college, went to med school, got married, had three kids, and worked for years as a small-town physician that he finally was able to go overseas to plant his life in East Asia and fulfill that decades-long calling. And he would tell you that every step along the way–even the hardships he faced on the field–was worth it.
Brink was an athletic, popular kid who had a surface relationship with the Lord. But things shifted one summer when he worked at a Christian camp (a job his father had secured for him, worried that his son was focusing too much on worldly pursuits).
“It was the first time I saw young people my own age who really loved God. I could see just by looking in their eyes that to them, God was real.” That led him to think to himself the profound question: Wait a minute . . . what if God really is real?
“At that moment, it all came crashing into my soul and I just fell in love with God. My whole life turned around that summer,” he says. Despite his enthusiasm, his father (although supportive of his decision) pointed out the wisdom of getting some education.
Brink started college with an undecided major, perhaps like other young people who get higher education at their parents request, but one day he was meditating on 1 John 3:18: “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” He very clearly heard God tell him that the best way he could do that was to become a doctor. “God wanted me to care for people with actions and in truth and use medicine as a bridge of friendship, which I could then use to tell people about God in a country where other Christians couldn’t,” he says.
But God has multiplied that, so that the gospel is being shared not in a single country, but all over Central and East Asia through a program called Shaker that Brink helped develop. The first step on that journey was bringing his wife and three kids to Central Asia in the 1990s. It was a frustrating time for his professional life–the necessary language study was delaying his medical work–and a devastating time in his family life. Brink’s* fourth child, a daughter, was diagnosed with a severe birth defect in utero, and had died by the time she was delivered. However, God stayed very close and very real to the couple during this time and they were not deterred.
Brink has provided care in orphanages, village clinics, and nursing homes; been involved with HIV care and disaster relief; and worked overseas and in neighboring countries. But one of the most lasting work he does is train other Christian physicians and send them out through the Shaker program. Five East Asian Shaker graduates are currently serving cross- culturally in places like Pakistan, Japan, and the Middle East. Shaker also facilitates short term medical mission trips to places like Cambodia, Mongolia, Nepal, and the Middle East. Fifteen doctors are currently enrolled in the medical M training program and want to serve in God’s mission.
While God was multiplying the mission Brink was called to as a teen, He also multiplied their family. When they first left the U.S., they had three children. Now they have nine children, some born in the family, some adopted or fostered, and one in heaven.
Never underestimate the stirrings of a teenager to do great things for God.
*Name has been changed for security purposes.