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The Next Generation

Three Post-Residency Program families follow God’s call to Kenya

(LtoR) The Cropseys, McLaughlins, and Faders will be serving
at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya.

Coincidence is a word that three young Post-Residency Program families—the Cropseys, Faders, and McLaughlins—have dropped from their vocabulary.

When the couples met and became friends in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it seemed like a perfect match. They all attended the same church, four in their group were attending medical school, and two were teachers.

To make it even more interesting, John Cropsey and Jason Fader both grew up in Africa, as sons of medical missionaries in Kenya and Togo. The couples also shared a common interest in medical missions.

“One night in September 2007, John, Jason, and a couple other innocent bystanders, got together and decided that maybe we weren't joking,” Dr. Eric McLaughlin recalled. “Maybe there was, in fact, an inexplicable sense of God's call in how three families and four physicians, from three different medical school years, completing training the same year, with compatible life goals, in four different but complementary specialties, happened to meet in the same place and become friends.”

The couples decided to pursue medical missions as a team, unsure if any missionary agency would consider sending three families and four physicians to the same mission field. Once again, God showed the way, leading the group to a medical missions conference where they learned about the Post-Residency Program.

The Cropseys, Faders, and McLaughlins were all accepted into the Post-Residency Program and are preparing for two-year assignments at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya.

For Jason Fader, it feels like a homecoming, returning to the country where his father, Dr. Tim Fader, served when Jason was a child.

“I was able to spend a lot of time in the operating room starting in 5th grade when I watched cardiac surgery,” Jason recalled. “Being in the hospital gave me the opportunity to see many desperately sick patients and it certainly had an impact on my desire to spend my career back in Africa.”

Over the next two years, the four physicians will gain valuable medical experience in a mission setting. The families will also seek God’s direction for the future, as they hope to continue serving together at a mission hospital or clinic somewhere in Africa.

“Among us we have a surgeon, family practice physician, OBGYN, an ophthalmologist, and two teachers who can teach all the kids that come along,” Dr. Fader said. “One of the gifts of this group is the community that comes along with it. We can go to a hard place and have that sustaining community. We’d love to go to a place and help build up a hospital. Over these next two years, we want to discover where that place is. I hope that God has great things in store for us.”

Physicians like Dr. Fader, Dr. Cropsey, and Drs. Eric and Rachel McLaughlin represent the next generation that God is raising up to serve Him as medical missionaries. And the young physicians appreciate the advice that veteran missionaries like Jason’s parents have to share. “This older generation of pioneer physicians went out and learned a lot of hard lessons, and it’s silly for us to go out and learn them again,” Dr. Fader said.

“For them to have all this experience and be able to pour that into us and be involved in our training here, it’s great.”