Joyce-Choe

Joyce Choe, MD MPH

Joyce Choe is a board certified ophthalmologist who practices in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to moving to Vancouver, WA, she worked in Southern California as a glaucoma specialist for 8 years. Here she had opportunity to develop long term relationships with patients and educated as many as were interested about the importance of nutrition and lifestyle for chronic disease. She tried to learn how to listen to her patients and to find the keys to their hearts, to help motivate them to make good decisions, with the hope that with improved health, they would be better able to hear God’s voice in other areas of their lives. By God’s grace, she saw patients make amazing transformations, with even brief encounters.

Since moving to the northwest, she is still actively educating by holding lectures, classes on nutrition and natural remedies, and helping with lifestyle programs at churches and lifestyle centers. She loves studying the Bible with others and considers it her greatest privilege. She is especially challenged by the simplicity of the gospel message, of how Christ worked when on this earth, and how it should apply to her life as a Christian physician who wishes to follow in His footsteps.

God’s Healing Agencies

in Fall 2021   |
Published on 09/01/2021   |
7 min | <<|>>

Ten years ago I moved to Washington State from California to work at a high volume surgical practice. I was coming out of some difficult life circumstances and was on a quest to be very real with God. One of the ways that I was doing this was by being very intentional about obeying God and holding Him to His word. I had learned about natural remedies and medical missionary work a decade before, and had been prayerfully seeking to help people use God’s ways to heal.

Kelly was a single mother with a four-year-old daughter who started working at the practice around the same time that I did. One morning at work I noticed that Kelly had dark circles under her eyes and looked exhausted. I asked her what the problem was.

“My daughter has been having high fevers every night and the doctors don’t know what to do,” she replied.

I told Kelly that sickness usually starts in the digestive system. Since she wasn’t home to take care of her daughter personally, she didn’t know what her daughter’s bowel movements were like and what she was eating. I counseled her about the subject and suggested foods that would help with bowel movements, as well as charcoal and hydrotherapy. I knew, however, that what I was saying was probably overwhelming for her.

Kelly’s daughter continued to have fevers every night for a few weeks, despite being prescribed a couple of antibiotics. Over this timeframe Kelly and her daughter visited the hospital numerous times, sometimes even in the middle of the night. It was after another one of these sleepless night, when her daughter woke up with a high fever, crying in pain, that Kelly and I worked together again in the operating room.

“Kelly, I can come and help you tonight.” The words just came out of my mouth.

What was I going to do to help her? I told myself that at least I knew more than Kelly did; I had a medical degree and I knew natural remedies. I could try to do something. Kelly was reluctant to have me come, but desperate for solutions, so she hesitatingly agreed.

When I finished operating I drove home and picked up some charcoal, psyllium husk powder, lemon and honey and then drove to Kelly’s home. I have to admit that I prayed much on my drive to her home. I was new at work and I knew that some considered me to be a bit eccentric because I talked openly about God and natural health principles. But it didn’t bother me.

My prayer was, “Lord, you know that if I go and what I do does not work, people might ridicule me. But Lord, we are supposed to go into people’s homes to help them and you have promised us that that with your blessing, these safe and natural means will work more effectively than drugs. I will go and do my best. You take care of the results.”

Because of traffic I arrived late that evening, close to her daughter’s bedtime. I made a tea with honey, lemon juice, and charcoal and her daughter obediently drank it down. Knowing that disease many times begins in the gut, I also prepared a charcoal poultice to place over her abdomen. I had planned to do some hydrotherapy as well, but due to the lateness of the hour, she fell asleep before I could do this, so we just had time to apply the charcoal poultice to her abdomen. We prayed together. And then I went home.

Miraculously, Kelly’s daughter remained afebrile that night after I left, and she continued to be afebrile in the days that followed. Kelly did hydrotherapy for her daughter the following day and continued to apply the charcoal poultice for the next few days. We never discovered the cause of her illness, but she is a healthy 14-year-old girl now. They have moved some distance from me so that it makes visiting difficult, but this interaction allowed me to have opportunity to know Kelly and her daughter in a way that I never would have otherwise.

One of my favorite quotes is that “medical missionary work brings to humanity the gospel of release from suffering.” -Medical Ministry, 239. Today, in the midst of the pandemic, people need relief from physical, mental and emotional suffering. True medical missionary work has given God’s people practical and effective tools to relieve physical suffering to show how powerfully God will heal emotional and spiritual pain. As we continue to make progress in learning and applying God’s mighty ways of healing, we will find that our jobs will be secure; “those who do this will find a field of labor anywhere,” and we “will open the door for the entrance of the truth. The doing of this work
will be followed by good results.”
– A Call to Medical Evangelism and Health Education, 9.

May we hasten Christ’s return. May we go forward and by God’s grace both learn and do true medical missionary work.

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