A Christian Missionary Group known as Odumehaje Christian Medical Mission, OCMM on Sunday February 21, 2021 inaugurated her Northwest Zonal office in Kaduna to handle her medical missions and outreaches in partnership with other zones within and outside Nigeria.
The Northwest Zonal Office which is one of the biggest will immediately hit the ground running with activities such as: organizing medical outreaches, entrepreneurship training and workshops for women and youths.
The zone will also seek partnerships with philanthropic groups and individuals, governments, corporate and religious bodies, alongside recruiting more volunteers, as well as raising funds for the organization to enhance service delivery.
The nortwest Zonal head of missions, Dr Chike Ownuteaka, giving his inaugural speech
The Head of Missions Medical for the Northwest Zone Dr. Chike Onwuteaka in an interview described medical missions as one of the greatest tools to break into the hard to reach communities to cultivate souls for God.
According to him, there are some people that may never accept the gospel except through Medicare, hence the need for OCMM to use the available medical man-power and resources to bring them to Christ.
Dr. Chike posited that medical missions pave way for people to work for God and it is a way of giving hope to people through its positive impact.
He said, going by the available human resources OCMM has on ground, he hopes that she will achieve more through team work and commitment.
” The first rural outreach I attended was from this mission, even though while in medical school we used to go for medical outreaches, but the first one I had to sleep over, attend to patients and do surgeries was from here.
“It has been an amazing experience volunteering for OCMM, because while working in town you have every facility and equipment needed for work, but whenever you go to the rural areas, you have to improvise to enable you work with limited resources.
“God has helped us we have a large chunk of man-power in terms of Christians that are medical professionals in Kaduna”, he explained, and her harnessing these resources will bring about great impact on the society.”.
Praying for the two heads of missions: Dr Chike Onwuteaka and Pst Philip Terwuna
On her part, nurse Justina Onyebedebra who is a nurse educator with the 44 Army Reference Hospital, Kaduna said it gives her joy to work to help the needy especially when it comes to saving lives.
She explained that her passion for the work has kept her going for 28 years in service and 7 years of philanthropic outreaches with OCMM where she has been part of their numerous medical missions across different states of the country, including Kaduna State.
The registered orthopedic nurse educator said OCMM has partnered with both local and foreign medical teams on medical missions where she had trained community health extension workers, provided skill acquisition training for out of school young mothers, given health talks to students and patients and also assisted with surgeries in theater.
With optimism she said, putting the two together, God on one hand and medicine on the other, has made it easier and result oriented for the organization over the years.
” I could remember, during one of our outreaches in Benue State many people gave their lives to christ, they came looking for medical care and ended up with spiritual healing too.
” For the younger ones, the message of Christ and medicine will be better handled by the younger ones to the younger ones”, she added, therefore I employ more young people from all walks of life to join us.”
One of the members, Pastor Sylvester Imodu, called for more partnerships and volunteers especially from the Faith-Based Organizations, governments and well spirited individuals to enable the organization achieve her set goals and objectives.
Front roll from Left to Right: The Northwest Zonal Head of Misson Medical, Dr. Chike Onwuteaka; the Co-Chairs, Mrs. Martha & Dr. Paul Odumu; Dr. Fidelis Ajuonuma. Back roll from left to right: Joseph Inalegwu; the Northwest Zonal Head of Mission Minister, Pst. Philip Terwuna; Pst. Sylvester Imodu; Nurse Justina Onyebedebra.
He said there are a lot of men and women out there who are suffering because of ignorance and needed the hope that comes from knowing God, which is one of the the primary goals of OCMM as well as giving affordable medical services to the poor and underserved communities.
The Chairman and CEO, OCMM, Dr. Paul Odumu explained that the Organization was set up as part of obedience to God’s instruction, saying the Organization has over the years been operating without grants from the government other than support from families and friends, Churches and pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Paul called on the newly established zone to remain committed to OCMM mandate, hoping that the zone will leave no stone unturned to bringing ideas together to ensure the set goals and objectives are achieved.
He reminded them that the OCMM of today was a journey that started unabotedly 22 years ago with records of medical and surgical outreaches across the country.
Please visit Eko hot blog for more information
