Amsterdam, May 3, 2002.

To the members of the IAMS-Interest Group HEALING  and all who are interested or would like to join.

Dear Friends,

In my last circular letter of May 5, 2000 I presented you with several options for further participation, from simple communication through e-mail,  to engaging in a well-defined study and becoming a project-group. Responses were so few that I had nothing to report further. Nobody has come forth as a committed participant in a wider research or study concerning healing. Some would welcome a wider study but cannot participate in it because of their standing commitments. This is obviously the case with most of the members of IAMS, and also for this interest-group.

In the meantime I have been sharing these options through the annual progress reports with the Executive Committee. With regard to the feasibility of having “healing” as central theme for a future Conference, the Executive of last January strongly recommended to get in touch with Jacques Matthey of the World Council of Churches in order to get linked into their plans for their next mission conference in 2005. Dagmar Plum wrote him and got an immediate enthusiastic response. Though their plans for that conference are not finalised,  their main thematic focus will be around reconciliation and healing. Jacques hopes that we can meet later this year, work together and somehow co-ordinate our initiatives. It should be possible for us as interest group to prepare in such a way for the IAMS Conference in 2004, that we can proceed from there with an IAMS contribution on healing to the WCC CWME (Commission on World Mission and Evangelism) Conference in 2005.

From the limited sharing we had it is already obvious that the theological issues and questions we marked for further exploration at the last Conference, are also questions raised by CWME. For convenience sake I quote from our report in Mission Studies:

“ What is the connection between healing and salvation? What is the difference? Priests, pastors, doctors and healers get the impression that often immediate cure  - a miracle? – is expected without any reference to life and eternal life as God’s gift.”

The last Executive has also brought us the theme for the 2004 IAMS conference to be held in Malaysia: “Integrity of Mission in the Light of the Gospel: Bearing the Witness of the Spirit”. It seems to me that integrity of mission would demand that this interest group no longer delays to face the questions that we have been carrying with us for so long. I suggest that our special preparation for 2004 will exist in beginning among ourselves a much more intensive interaction on these issues, in which all those who are interested can participate, according to time and energy available, and their special interest.

We need more insight in the anthropological underpinnings of these questions,  in the significance (definition) of health and wholeness in different cultures. We need a theological  exploration into Christ as Healer and Saviour, and into the presence of the Spirit in that intricate knot of good and evil which is the world in which we live.

This exchange can begin now. It will give us a taste of where we have moved since we met in Hammanskraal, Pretoria. It will also give us more insight in what could be possible in terms of further planning and working together when we meet Jacques Matthey later this year. For that reason I would be very happy if you could send me before the end of June some sign of life, and let me know whether and in what way you intend to participate in this. A no-participation response will also be welcomed and appreciated for it brings clarity!

 Looking forward to hearing from you, and wishing you peace, within and without,

Godelieve Prové convenor

IAMS Interest Group Healing