Participants: Claudio Japas, Hildemar Dos Santos
Series Code: WM
Program Code: WM000416
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00:01 The following program presents principles
00:03 Designed to promote good health and is not 00:04 intended to take the place of 00:05 personalized professional care. 00:08 The opinions and ideas expressed are those 00:10 of the speaker. Viewers are encouraged to 00:12 draw their own conclusions 00:14 about the information presented. 00:35 Hello and welcome to Wonderfully Made. 00:37 I'm your host Claudio Japas. 00:38 I'm happy to be with you. I'm a Doctoral Student at 00:41 Loma Linda University in the Preventive Care Program. 00:44 Today, we have an interesting topic that you 00:46 may be interested in. With me joining me is 00:49 Dr. Dos Santos. He is also from Loma Linda 00:51 University in the Preventive Care Program. 00:53 Welcome Dr. Dos Santos. Thank you very much to 00:56 be here. It is my pleasure to share about 00:59 health with our audience. And you believe that 01:03 health is something that's very important to you and 01:05 for me also and I hope that everybody watching 01:07 that health is something that's on your to do this or 01:10 something you look forward to. 01:12 And today on our program, we want to 01:15 speak on how is health been used to reach others, 01:18 how is health a tool for to not only teach health, but 01:23 to teach about Jesus Christ. And we often call this 01:26 Health Evangelism. What is Health Evangelism to you? 01:30 Well you, you have first to go to the word evangelism. 01:34 So, evangelism in Christian term means to 01:38 bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to people and then 01:42 to share Jesus' message with other people and 01:47 Jesus' gospel of salvation. In terms of Health 01:52 Evangelism my definition is that evangelism does 01:57 not mean only for the gospel, but it means 02:00 promote something, preach something, and 02:03 then you preach health, so Health Evangelism is to 02:07 promote health the community to the 02:09 church to who ever. It doesn't mean baptizing 02:12 them and just in using that as evangelism, 02:15 but more to that? Is more that, I believe we 02:18 have used that term evangelism, Health 02:20 Evangelism, as the right arm to bring more souls 02:25 through Christ, but I would say, I have a friend 02:28 that is very interested and do research on exercise 02:33 and he consider himself exercise evangelist. 02:38 And I believe the term is that he is for multi 02:41 exercise. So, our function is to use the word Health 02:44 Evangelism to promote health activities. 02:47 Okay very good, so you just point to teach a good 02:50 news of what health can do to you. For your body 02:53 how to keep it healthy and optimal, how is this 02:55 different from conventional or traditional evangelism 02:59 any differences? Well, I have my own idea 03:05 about that, I believe when Jesus was here, he 03:08 promote healing and teaching and preaching. 03:13 So, he was at three component of his mission. 03:18 And if we go over and decide to follow his steps, 03:23 we should have the gospel, we should have 03:27 education and teaching and we should have the 03:31 Health Evangelism. The health activities together 03:34 and that's what I point, even though health, 03:37 Health Evangelism has been used for by our 03:40 church or by some churches to help to bring 03:44 source to the church. But, the term means imitating 03:49 the mission of Jesus Christ that was healing 03:53 and sometimes he was more healing or healing 03:56 more then preaching. So, it's more of part thing 04:00 going together healing and preaching together 04:03 not one leading the other or following the other, 04:05 that's how you see it correct. 04:07 Same, yes. Okay, you said that it is 04:10 for the members of the community. 04:13 What do you mean of is that just next door or 04:16 bigger than that or? I believe Health Evangelism 04:20 as we know it, it starts with, with members in the 04:25 church and then it spreads outside of the church. 04:29 So, if you promote health activities to a church they 04:33 can easily invite some friends and relatives and 04:37 some neighbors that they can share 04:40 the message with them. And this in the Adventist 04:43 church is very common, but not just the Adventist 04:46 church I remember there was, I did a study with 04:50 the Baptist church in United States that many 04:54 times health activities were run in the churches 05:00 because somehow the communities could not 05:03 get health care and then the church became the 05:06 health provider and that's very interesting for 05:09 American history that Health Evangelism is a 05:13 component of many churches. And so they would come 05:16 to the churches to be taught how to be healthy 05:19 or how to cook healthy or how to keep their bodies 05:22 or may be even have a small clinic there on 05:24 certain days of the week, where they 05:25 could come to right. Especially in the African- 05:28 American communities, I mean the church was very 05:31 important to prevent hypertension, high 05:33 cholesterol and some they have seminars, they have 05:37 small clinics and they have health fares that 05:41 promote this preventive activities and even 05:45 curative activities to promote health in the 05:49 community that was not being serve them that 05:51 they didn't have enough power or money to pay 05:56 for a physician and to go to a higher level. 05:59 Right, right, sometimes we don't think that it's 06:02 happening so much or we don't see it often perhaps, 06:04 but many churches are still doing this correct? 06:07 Yes, many churches do that, of course when you 06:13 learn that this or when you agree with me if you 06:17 agree with me, that this is something that church 06:21 can do you see the power that we have even to help 06:25 the health care, if we have deliver message, 06:28 preventive messages through the church. 06:31 I once attended a meeting in a conference the person 06:35 is was talking about how to prevent AIDS in the world. 06:40 And she was specifically talking about churches, 06:44 not anything else. She was not concerned about 06:47 the governments and the other agencies and school 06:50 and she said the church can do it. And when she 06:54 talk about the churches, it's not just one church, 06:56 she said that we have churches Protestant, 06:59 Catholics and several different church 07:01 Adventists and then if they deliver the right 07:04 message to prevent AIDS we can, we could have a 07:08 big working in Africa by instance and then we will 07:13 have a better control of the epidemic there. 07:16 Right, right, so it's very powerful, lot of change 07:19 can happen through the churches and using the 07:22 health message through this entity or 07:25 these organizations. Now you had some 07:29 personal changes also in your personal life that 07:32 you experienced when you were growing up, 07:36 is that not true? Yes, I'm from Brazil, 07:40 so in Brazil I'm from the south and the south is like 07:45 Southern United States, the South American 07:48 cowboys, so we use to eat meat three times a day. 07:52 But, when I was maybe 15, 16 years old I started 07:56 reading books that the Adventist church has on 08:00 health and this woke we up to a better lifestyle and 08:06 then I change and then I started being more 08:08 vegetarian and more concerned about that and 08:12 so that was a big change I believe for. It was not 08:16 easy, but was a big change for my life. 08:20 So, it did work in your personal life to become 08:24 acquainted with some better practices for health 08:26 that could improve your lifestyle or improve the 08:29 benefits that are accompanied by that. 08:32 And also this will led me to enter in the health field. 08:37 I became health leader in the church and 08:40 then as long as I remember I was always a health 08:43 leader in the place that I move, even in America 08:47 I always have somehow I got to work with Health 08:52 Evangelism in the church. So, you became Health 08:55 Evangelist. Exactly, exactly, well I went 08:58 to the American school because of that. I mean 09:00 this was an influence then I went to Loma Linda and 09:02 then I'm now teaching desirous, but was just 09:07 because when I was in church I was somehow 09:12 influenced by health messages in the church. 09:15 Yeah and you were just in the church or where there 09:19 other places that gave you opportunities to influence. 09:23 Well, I worked in several different places, but 09:29 I remember I was worked in Hong Kong and then 09:32 I was working for the Hong Kong Adventist 09:34 Hospital, but one day we went to visit the Director 09:38 of Public Health in the city. The Hong Kong has 09:41 about 7 million people, so I visit the lady and she is 09:44 a doctor and she said okay you believe in 09:47 public health. What can you do in public health in 09:50 Hong Kong, what public health can do? What you 09:53 can do about that? Then I thought for a moment 09:56 and then I said well we have 13 churches in 09:59 Hong Kong, so if we promote health in those 10:03 churches and turn these churches to health centers. 10:06 We will have a big influence in this 10:09 communities and maybe the model that we 10:12 develop can be spread to other churches. 10:15 I was talking about Adventist church, but if 10:17 the Baptist church and Lutheran church will get 10:19 the idea, they could develop the same thing. 10:22 Same model to spread, yeah, that same concept 10:25 of health to other places. And of course, and 10:27 of course we went to other churches, I did 10:30 lecturing, did some lectures in other church 10:33 non-Adventist, we went to the schools, we went to 10:35 corporations to promote health I mean now is a 10:39 big deal, worksite wellness is a big, is a big 10:42 important program that we consider in public 10:46 health one of the best because you have a 10:48 capped divulgence, right, and then the employer is 10:53 willing to do that because some how they spend less 10:58 costs on health insurance. And then the employees 11:03 are happy because they improve their health and 11:06 then you improve the relationship between 11:08 employee and employer and you bring health to a 11:11 very good environment so. That's right, in fact 11:15 I remember correctly most of the Fortune 500 11:17 companies almost all of them have corporate 11:20 wellness or worksite wellness programs to help 11:23 just with their concepts. So, well Health Evangelism 11:26 may not be the term that they use right for that, 11:28 there would be something that has very same 11:31 method teaching and sharing the health that can 11:37 be obtained by anyone who wants to learn and 11:40 apply to their life. Yeah, I see that also in 11:45 terms of the effects of having a health lifestyle 11:51 on your spiritual performance, on your 11:54 physical and mental performance. 11:56 And so, I have a story to tell you and then I want to 12:00 show a picture of the first native pastor in Brazil 12:04 Jose Amador dos Reis, he was a cousin of my 12:10 grandfather and then I know very well the story. 12:13 He was a very successful pastor the first pastor, 12:16 who was baptized in the Adventist church and he 12:20 unfortunately he die at 43 years old. 12:24 And then I bring the issue why did he die so young. 12:31 I believe mostly is because he didn't know 12:34 about the health message. As a nation in the 12:36 beginning so we were in South of Brazil, we used 12:40 to eat a lot of meat and lot of sugar and we didn't 12:45 know about sleep and stress control and other 12:51 water intake and things like that and fruits and 12:54 vegetables, so we didn't even get the whole health 12:59 message. So, we were not Health Evangelized. 13:02 Right, right, so you just obtained parts of that, 13:05 there is some pieces of it. Exactly and then these 13:08 would if we, if we, I believe if he knew about 13:12 that and he practiced that he could have longer time 13:15 serving the church or preaching that's my point. 13:19 Right. You will increase both the performance and 13:22 your life is gonna be longer with a healthy lifestyle. 13:27 For yourself and also for anyone who is watching 13:30 or wanting to participate or take those effects that 13:33 could extend your life and your quality of life. 13:36 So, those are excellent things that are priceless, 13:38 I mean big companies are taking advantage of that 13:40 and making use of it, everybody should as a 13:44 matter of fact. Now I'm excited, I like health, how 13:48 could I make it as I'm learning more, how could 13:52 I take this to an practical level to my community, 13:56 to my church? Well I, one thing that 14:00 I believe is to develop health support groups and 14:06 when I was in Hong Kong we would develop 14:09 this in the community. So, we chose the church 14:15 that was very central and then we apply there 14:20 support groups. We develop support groups 14:22 for cholesterol, for high cholesterol, for high 14:25 blood pressure, for diabetes, for smoking 14:28 cessation and then this was the way to attract 14:33 people that in the community and help 14:36 people in the church. Some members of the 14:38 church were having this, this, this problem and 14:42 then when we bring them together, so was a share 14:46 of ideas and share of knowledge and it was a 14:50 very good way. I have one slide that show my 14:55 cholesterol support group if we can show now. 15:00 I remember when I was on that group I have a 15:06 lady there that had a cholesterol 15:09 level of 300 mg/dL. And then she followed 15:13 the guidelines and her cholesterol after three 15:18 months dropped to 150 and that was 15:21 I even didn't even ask. Good improvement. 15:23 Yeah, she volunteer to tell us about that 15:27 and that was excellent. Now you are a doctor and 15:32 maybe somebody has a equal degree, you are in 15:34 the health field or DRPH preventive care person, 15:39 but can any lay person do this or any community 15:42 member or church member do a program like this? 15:47 Of course the everybody can do depends on the 15:50 level that you have, so when we work there the 15:56 cholesterol group was based on me. And I try 15:59 to put someone else their and a nurse and I believe 16:03 if you having a church a nurse, a doctor, a nurse 16:06 practitioner, a physical therapy, a dentist. 16:09 So, those could be the health leaders, but if you 16:14 don't have the knowledge to develop support group 16:17 you can do as the alcoholic anonymous do things. 16:22 So, what they do is that they have one alcoholic 16:26 that recovered and then they set up a group of 16:30 ex-alcoholics and then they get together. 16:33 And then they support each other. 16:35 Once in a while they bring one specialist to do 16:38 a lecture, to do a support, to do some counseling. 16:42 So, the same thing we can apply for the support group. 16:46 You can bring them, you can if there is no health 16:50 director in the church, so the person can go to the 16:53 community invite people to With common entrance. 16:56 Exactly. With common situations they wanna 16:59 decrease or work on and have that one each other 17:03 support each other with what they are learning or 17:05 each one present apart. But, what I mean is that 17:07 they can find in the community a nurse that 17:10 could give the guidelines to start the thing. 17:12 Okay, and then later on they get this group 17:16 together and then they continue, but they always 17:19 looking for resources outside of the church and 17:22 the activities don't need to be just health related. 17:26 They can develop other activities relaxing things 17:29 and even the spiritual activities that will help 17:32 the group to maintain echo system. 17:36 And continues and in other objects or subjects 17:40 that would be of interest to them. Now, are those 17:44 are the main results of Health Evangelism or 17:47 what are the some of the results that could be 17:49 obtained from that, is just learning and everybody 17:51 leaves and goes back and would you train other 17:54 leader, so that they can lead in more groups or 17:56 other, other things. We are not talking about baptism. 18:01 Unnecessarily. Yeah, I think, I think 18:05 there are several levels for improvement that we 18:09 have one is that our nation already you 18:13 increase the health of the person in the church, then 18:19 this person might have more energy, more 18:24 opinions, and more a better performance to do 18:29 evangelism and to help other people. 18:32 And to have other people that have other disease. 18:34 So, then other problem, health problems and then 18:37 this will reach the community as the 18:42 surrounding community. Many times, I ask about 18:46 baptisms because sometimes we like to use, 18:51 I mean is an Adventist tradition to use Health 18:56 Evangelism together with a gospel to bring people 18:59 to the church. And I believe we forget that 19:03 many people leave the church by the back door 19:06 and why they leave because they are 19:08 inactively they don't have many friends in the 19:10 church and that's why I believe Health 19:13 Evangelism is important because we will keep the 19:15 community active in promoting these groups 19:19 and promoted these activities we will make 19:21 this church to be an active church. 19:24 I develop one health fare in Chino for the 19:28 Portuguese speaking church in California. 19:33 And then we brought all the church together and 19:37 the youth to promote I mean several areas of health. 19:42 And we have blood tests and you have. 19:45 Invite. Invite the community. 19:47 Church members or community members. 19:48 Yeah, the church members were in the 19:50 booths and then inviting everyone else to 19:52 To work together. To work together and 19:54 to participate in the health fare. 19:56 Yeah that can be very bonding, very 19:58 contributing to the community and of course 20:01 all things can start from their and you know you 20:03 can have people go to if they find the risk or 20:06 something you could go to your personal medical 20:09 doctor or to different clinics or different places, 20:13 where you could treat those things, so it's a 20:15 good preventive measure to for diseases and so forth. 20:19 One thing that I forgot to mention is that just an 20:24 illustration of the cholesterol group. 20:29 When I mentioned about this lady I brought here 20:32 what she did? Okay. And then what I promote 20:35 so we have a research by Dr. Jenkins from Canada 20:40 that he use this type of things to lower 20:43 cholesterol is a combination of grains and almonds 20:47 and one of type of fat that is a natural fat, so we 20:53 have, I adopted Dr. Jenkins diet and so I will tell you 21:01 what I change from that, but is one cup of beans in 21:05 this case I put lentils here so one cup of lentils, 21:10 one cup of oatmeal and then this is traditional we 21:15 know that oatmeal helped to drop cholesterol. 21:19 As we know also that beans also help to drop 21:23 cholesterol then when handful of almonds, so if 21:28 you can put the almonds like that you have a little 21:31 bit of more of handful, but this is what they have 21:37 to eat everyday. Then we have here a substance 21:41 called psyllium and I told the lady today about 21:46 psyllium and nobody knows what the psyllium, 21:48 but is more known by Metamucil and if you use 21:56 Metamucil should be without flavor and then 21:59 this one is a fiber and you have to be careful to not 22:03 eat too much of that because then you may get 22:06 diarrhea and gas. So, should be one or two 22:11 tablespoon and then you have to measure the effect 22:15 on yourself. You mentioned something about not 22:18 having flavors or sugars, is there a particular 22:21 reason for that. Oh, it's just because sugar 22:24 will increase the calorie content and so we don't in 22:28 sugar we don't wanna promote sugar, okay, 22:34 in health environment. So, we are not sugar 22:39 favorite person. Perfect. And then the other thing 22:43 is avocado. So, the as I mentioned Dr. Jenkins 22:50 from Canada he advised people to use a kind of 22:56 margarine that is reach in beta-sitosterol, 23:00 beta-sitosterol, okay, and is a substance that drop 23:04 cholesterol is a type of fat that drop cholesterol. 23:07 Okay. Then I was researching and then 23:10 I found that avocado has it. 23:12 So, I don't like margarine, I don't like, and some will 23:15 go to natural way, I notify, yeah, 23:16 and so this is what the lady was using that 23:21 everyday, I don't know how much more she 23:23 could eat everyday, but she did that and that's 23:26 why her cholesterol dropped for 50% lower 23:31 and then I advised I mean there are some research 23:34 with avocado that if you eat one avocado per day 23:37 you can drop cholesterol and increase the HDL. 23:42 The HDL is the good cholesterol that protects 23:45 against heart disease and then the new thing is that 23:49 is not a low fat diet that is good. But, light fat diet 23:54 not a high fat, light fat diet and diet that have 23:59 some good fats that are found in both in avocado 24:03 and almonds. And with avocado you 24:07 are this is a medium or small avocado. 24:09 Because there are some avocados are pretty big, 24:11 so when you need one avocado per 24:13 day medium or small? Yeah, I would say one 24:16 Haas avocado. Oh! One-half. That is a Californian, 24:19 no Haas is HAAS is the, okay, brand name is a 24:23 type of avocado. So, should be a California 24:27 avocado not the Filipino or Florida 24:30 avocado, which is too big. Those are too big and 24:33 maybe the part of them you have them. 24:36 Yeah, take a part similar to this size. 24:37 Okay, perfect, perfect. So, this was the good way 24:39 that somebody was able to learn though Health 24:42 Evangelism, how to take care of their cholesterol 24:44 levels and if it was done by a church, it's a good 24:47 way to make the friends and the connection and 24:50 that's why I see the similar method of what 24:52 you mention Jesus was doing, you know, he 24:54 would walk around or go wherever the God send 24:57 him to and he was preaching the good news 25:00 and healing those that needed the healing and 25:02 the church has the same commission, the same job 25:05 in all days to do the same and this is probably the 25:09 best way to do it. And we think about 25:11 health messages in terms of doing a health fare or 25:14 big health fare, health lectures, but it can be, 25:19 can be simple like that and it can be a food 25:21 demonstration, a cooking demonstration. 25:24 I remember one activity that I like the most and 25:27 I was the person doing is promote 25:30 ice cream in the church. You say ice cream you 25:34 just mentioned about sugar, how can you do that. 25:37 The thing is that we just froze the fruits and then 25:42 we have a blender a special type of blender 25:44 that we put frozen fruits there and we produce the 25:47 fresh fruits, fresh fruit ice cream that was kind of 25:52 delicious and we can do some different flavors 25:55 with no single gram of fat. No single gram of sugar. 26:00 And so all natural. All natural. 26:02 All healthy, yeah, so you could eat as 26:04 much as you wanted. We have to have moderation 26:07 in all things so. Exactly so, yeah, I'm just 26:11 playing a joke there, obviously food is to be 26:14 enjoyed, but in moderation even the good foods that 26:17 we have been talking about. Now Dr. Dos Santos 26:19 we have been talking about Health Evangelism. 26:21 Do you have any concluding thoughts of 26:23 what Health Evangelism is? I think Health Evangelism 26:27 is health promotion in the church using the church 26:31 as a tool and I believe the church is that don't have 26:34 that I mean are just missing a part of the 26:37 evangelism that total evangelism that is 26:40 bringing health that is a part of the abundant life 26:43 that Jesus is providing to us. And I believe one 26:49 important part is that we should imitate somehow 26:53 the ministry of Jesus that included a health component. 26:58 Right and that reminds me of the verse in Luke 27:01 9:11, which says that Jesus welcome them and 27:04 then spoke to them about the kingdom of heaven, 27:06 the kingdom of his father, the gospel and then 27:09 healed those that needed healing. 27:11 So, the same thing should be applied to what we do, 27:15 where we will have health together with the 27:18 message, the message of Jesus Christ dying for us 27:20 and given us hope and have both of them work 27:22 together just like Jesus. Jesus gave us a perfect 27:25 example. And we wanna do that with Health 27:27 Evangelism to bring people to Christ and not 27:30 only bring them, but to keep them in Christ and 27:33 growing in Christ and that has a combination with 27:36 health very much like we saw with Jesus. 27:39 So, we hope that you have enjoyed watching 27:41 about Health Evangelism and that you partake in 27:44 the Health Evangelism that you may see in your 27:45 church or your community and if there is nothing 27:47 going on there that you maybe able to start 27:50 something or ask for more information of how 27:52 you can not only participate, but lead in 27:55 something never think that you don't have the 27:57 knowledge there is plenty of material to learn, to be 28:00 trained in. So, let us once again remember what 28:04 Jesus did and that he was our perfect example in 28:07 Health Evangelism. Thank you for joining us today. |
Revised 2014-12-17