Becoming an Ambassador of Christ (edit, back)
03/24/2008
Ron Fleck was ready to live a “doctor’s life.” Having completed medical school and residency, Ron launched a medical practice in Superior, Montana, in 1971. “I was insecure, and trying to portray the image of a successful physician,” he writes. With the bank more than willing to loan money to a young doctor, Ron went on a spending spree, not only buying equipment for his new practice but also two new cars, a 105-acre ranch, two dirt bikes and two snowmobiles.
Working to support his new lifestyle – and pay-off his debts – Ron was seeing about 40 patients and working 14-16 hours each day. While he tried to lead a normal Adventist life with his family, Ron’s preoccupation was his medical practice. And things did go well. Although he was working day and night, the debts were being paid.
Then everything started to unravel. The economy in Superior crashed, and Ron’s income was halved. He sold the ranch for only half its value and moved his practice and family to Shelby, Montana. But not long afterward, Ron’s wife left him, taking their five children with her. So once again Ron packed up and moved, this time to Sheridan, Oregon. It was there that he fully turned to the Lord, desperately seeking answers. “I would work all day in my clinic seeing patients and then come home and study my Bible until the wee hours of the morning,” he writes. Ron began to feel closer to God than he ever had before. The Lord also blessed his practice, and after five years Ron was completely out of debt.
In 1986, Ron moved again, this time to Walla Walla, Washington. It was there that he married Bobbie, who had lost her husband to a brain tumor. Together they comforted each other’s pain and grew in the Lord.
After several years of hearing about ASI and being encouraged to join, Ron and Bobbie attended a North Pacific Union ASI chapter meeting. “I was inspired to get involved with ASI,” he writes. “Bobbie and I joined, and then I became involved even more with Gospel Outreach, which is also an ASI member.” Ron describes what a source of joy service with ASI has been, and how he looks forward to every local meeting as well as the annual convention.
“We should primarily see ourselves as Ambassadors of Christ, and our business or profession as secondary,” writes Ron. “ASI provides an incredible opportunity to network with Adventist professionals and business people to serve others in ways you could never do alone. There is no greater joy than to serve God and others, and one of the best ways to serve God is through ASI.”
Would you like to join ASI? You are warmly invited to be a part of “Sharing Christ in the Marketplace.” Membership information can be found online at www.asiministries.org, or by calling 301-680-6450.