Dr. Wrede Vogel, executive director for the Luke Society in Sioux Falls, S.D., travels the world to work with indigenous health professionals who have been called to serve their people in 30 ministries on five continents.

Ten years ago Sioux Falls, S.D., became the headquarters for an international Christian medical missions organization called the Luke Society (www.lukesociety.org). From his office on Gateway Boulevard, Dr. Wrede Vogel shared his journey from being a medical student desiring to go to the mission field to becoming the Luke Society’s current executive director.

Dave Eggen / Inertia The world is the Luke Society’s mission field, as Dr. Wrede Vogel and the organization he leads are dedicated to helping medical missions and health professionals in many countries.

“The Luke Society is an interdenominational organization of Christian health and business professionals dedicated to medical missions. We provide resources to help indigenous Christian health professionals bring their God-given visions to fruition,” Vogel said.

Vogel pointed out the uniqueness of this organization in that it is not a sending agency. The Luke Society assists national Christian health providers who do not have the language or cultural barriers that someone from outside their country would have. They have ideas for solving their own problems.

“We come alongside them to help them fulfill the vision God has given them,” Vogel said. Currently, the Luke Society supports 36 ministries on five continents.

It was during a high school assembly in northwest Iowa that Vogel felt the first inward stirring toward mission work. Dr. Peter Boelens, founder of the Luke Society, was the guest speaker who shared his own eye-opening journey of being a medical missionary in South Korea, working alongside skillful Korean doctors who served their people well but lacked resources. It was the turning point for Boelens as he saw how far-better equipped they were to help their own people because they knew the governmental, political-social systems, the needs, the culture, the language and the Savior who could bring eternal healing.

Boelens’ message inspired Vogel to pursue medicine as a career with an open mind to take it to the mission field. He graduated from Creighton University medical school in 1983 and did his residency in Sioux City, Iowa.  

In those early years of practicing family medicine, Vogel seized opportunities to go on short-term mission trips. It was on a medical missions brigade to Honduras that Vogel met Boelens again and had an opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the field.

Riding in the back of a banana truck heading for the coastal region of Honduras, Vogel found himself a captive audience again to Boelens’ wisdom and experience. God’s call on Vogel’s life became clear. Boelens challenged Vogel to spend some time in a mission field in the Deep South. He wouldn’t have to learn another language (with the exception of a few necessary Deep South phrases). Vogel accepted the challenge and invited his friend and co-worker, Dr. Greg Kuiper, to join him in establishing a medical clinic in Dermott, Ark. -- just across the big river in the Mississippi Delta. They took their wives and began a five-year span of serving the people there.

Looking back, Vogel believes the time spent in Arkansas had a significant impact in the lives of his patients. But God used it even more as a training ground for his role today as the Luke Society’s executive director. Today Vogel travels the globe meeting Christian doctors who are at work in their countries helping the underserved. Some of these Christian doctors find the Luke Society through missionary friends and others make the connection by way of Internet contacts. Once communication is developed with an understanding of a doctor’s vision, an initial visit is made to hear that story and see what God is doing through them with what little they have.

Dr. Ousmane Soh in Senegal, West Africa, is one such doctor. He exemplifies a typical Luke Society ministry. After some introductory e-mail conversations, Vogel made the trip to meet Soh and was very impressed with his testimony, his excellent skills as a physician and, most of all, his passion to help his people.

Soh is Fulani and grew up in a Muslim family. His early dreams of becoming an Imam gradually faded as he grappled with spiritual questions that were not answered in his study of Islamic teachings. He did well in school and gained acceptance to medical school in Libya.

Soh’s life changed dramatically when a fellow student invited him to see “The Jesus Film.” He was unexpectedly moved beyond reason and asked to take the film home to view again in private. Then and there it all made sense. He knelt and surrendered his heart to Christ through tears and was filled with a burning heart to take this message home to his people and to use his medical skills to help them find healing -- both physically and spiritually. He set up his clinic in a strategic location where a cattle market attracts Fulani from a large region each week.

Like Dr. Soh, those who are living out their call to follow Christ with determination to serve their own people, with or without resources, are the ones who most often become Luke Society directors. The Luke Society assists them with their efforts in community health -- teaching people how to prevent disease and equipping people to care of themselves, their families and their communities.

“When appropriate, we also help initiate economic development projects to help people provide for their families,” Vogel said. “Of most importance, however, the Luke Society is a Christ-centered ministry of evangelism and discipleship, reconciling man to God and man to man through the truth of the Gospel.”

The Luke Society is supporting ministries throughout Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas and continues to add more as the Lord leads. Each ministry varies in its scope and vision -- incorporating medical clinics, community health outreach, water and sanitation projects, economic development, Christian education, church planting and Bible study. But each is grounded in Jesus’ example in Matthew 9:35: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the Kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”

Though times are tough economically for many mission organizations, God has sustained and blessed the Luke Society through many supporting individuals and churches throughout the country.

“As long as the Lord continues to provide, we will continue adding ministries and expanding His Kingdom over the earth,” Vogel said.