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Elle

Sent from Regent Chapel Christian Fellowship, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Elle is part of a medical ministry team on the Indian Ocean Islands.

When Elle became a Christian at a Gloddaeth camp in rainy north Wales, she was already planning to become a doctor; but God challenged her that while he loves us to serve people practically, the biggest need anyone has is hearing and accepting the gospel.

On her gap year in a Creative Access country, where it isn’t possible to publicly preach the gospel, Elle met Christians using ‘normal’ jobs to build relationships and share the good news. God gave her a heart for the people they were trying to reach: they are so difficult to get the message to, and face so many dangers if they accept it. Elle felt called to this work.

During medical school Elle stayed with an AIM team on an Indian Ocean island and worked in the hospital there. She saw God work in amazing ways: People wanted to talk about God, sought out the Bible, and even had dreams about Jesus. She wanted to go back as soon as possible.

Elle has now returned to the island to join the AIM team there. She will primarily work as a children’s doctor in the hospital and rural clinics, but her intention will be to make friends with staff and patients and share the essential truth of the gospel with them.

Could you partner with Elle in this work?

Latest Prayer News

5 November 2025

Elle* is part of a medical ministry team on the Indian Ocean Islands. Recently a blind mother, who had received no antenatal care, delivered twins at their hospital weighing 1.3 and 1.5kg. She had no money to go to the neonatal unit in the city, so they were kept on the postnatal ward, using ‘kangaroo care’ to keep their temperatures up (placing them skin-to-skin with mum or a relative and holding them in place with a scarf tied around) and a lot of prayer! Praise the Lord, they’re currently doing well and gaining weight! But it does reaffirm the need for a neonatal unit there. Pray for Elle and the team as they plan and try to ensure they do the simple, important things well. Mary* and family have been busy sorting their cloves for sale. This and other things, mean they haven’t studied in ages. Elle wondered if Mary* was still interested. But after a long conversation when she offered Mary* many ways of saying no and assured her of her ongoing friendship, Mary is firm about continuing to study once the cloves are sorted. Elle wants to ‘relaunch’ their studies by retelling the contextualised good news presentation they use (the kingdoms of light and darkness). Please pray that this would be memorable and make sense of the rest of the stories.

* Name changed for security reasons

10 September 2025

Elle* is part of a medical ministry team on the Indian Ocean Islands. This month she is taking over as interim team leader as her colleague is on home assignment, so pray for wisdom during this time. She recently attended the wedding of a former language helper in the capital. It was a big and fancy wedding, but the bride and groom didn’t attend! Apparently they hope to have an even bigger, fancier wedding in the future, a ‘grand marriage’ that will give them special status on the islands. Some believe that this future wedding will only ‘count’ if the bride hasn’t attended events before, so she sat at home while everyone showed off their outfits and danced. This resonated when Elle* was studying David’s anointing with Stacey*, a local believer, and the wonderful truth that God looks at the heart. Stacey shared that there is a lot of emphasis within Islam and island culture to ‘look’ good, successful, rich. Pray that islanders would recognise the importance of having a heart that’s right with the Father, however we look to men.

*Name changed for security reasons

23 April 2025

Elle* is part of a medical ministry team on the Indian Ocean Islands. During Ramadan the two ‘seeker groups’ did not want to study much, but Elle had some good conversations with hospital staff. “Particularly pray for Ba Ds* (the father of my friend Dorcas*), Obed*, who learnt a lot about our beliefs when he studied abroad and is at least open to discussion, and Hushai*, who asked for a copy of the Word in French and the local language.” Please ask for fruit from these conversations. Whilst Elle can have informal chats with men at the hospital, she wouldn’t be able to study with them at home unless their female relatives were also involved, so please ask either for interest from their families, or for her to be able to link them up with local brothers.”

* Name changed for security reasons.

Indian Ocean Islands

These beautiful tropical islands are 99.9% Muslim and for security reasons we refer to this area as the ‘Indian Ocean Islands’ rather than naming individual islands. Islam is deeply rooted on these islands and to be an islander is to be a Muslim. There are a small number of believers on each island but many follow Jesus secretly for fear of rejection and persecution.

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Healthcare

We long to see Health Professionals practising, modelling and mentoring competent, compassionate medicine, but doing so in places where they will influence unreached people groups for Christ.

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Lessons in sharing faith

We asked Amelia to share what she has learnt about sharing her faith over the 13 years she has lived on an island in the Indian Ocean, and how important it is to understand other people’s faith before sharing your own.

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