The Story of our Health Message

A Providential Opening

And now, as the work of training Christian physicians goes down in Battle Creek, Michigan, we turn our attention to developments that were opening the way for such training to be given elsewhere. The providence of God was unmistakably seen in this emergency. SHM 332.1

Five years before this, in an appeal to Seventh-day Adventist parents not to send their children and youth to Battle Creek, where their minds would become confused by erroneous teachings and misleading influences, Mrs. White had written on October 28, 1905, the following assurance regarding divine plans for the education of medical missionaries and physicians: SHM 332.2

“The Lord will open, yes, He is opening ways whereby your children can be given an education in medical missionary lines without endangering their souls. If the preparations in these places are not as complete as they are at Battle Creek, they can do as much as was done when the work was first started at Battle Creek. We did not then have provision for sending out fully equipped physicians. In a short time we shall have facilities for giving the necessary requirements.”—Ellen G. White Manuscript 151, 1905. (Italics mine.) SHM 332.3

It was, doubtless, providential that this statement, with a prediction of facilities to be provided elsewhere than in Battle Creek for giving the necessary requirements for the training of “fully equipped physicians,” was not sent out at the time it was penned. Surely the faith of the believers would have been taxed to the utmost at that time to credit the assertion or to realize that the Lord was even then “opening up ways” whereby the youth could be “given an education in medical missionary lines without endangering their souls.” Yet so it was, as may be seen today in the light of later developments. SHM 332.4