Why Such a High Salvation Ratio?

This is one subject that I’m still "noodling." I’m not so sure how to think about this and it may be that a doctoral study is in the works for the future to explore and understand this element of cross-cultural ministry and the dynamics of evangelism in the third world, in a Catholic Christian culture. Why did so many come to Christ at the medical clinics? Didn’t they already believe? Didn’t they already have a saving faith in Jesus Christ? Weren’t many of them already in attendance at various churches? I’m puzzled. 

A dataset to consider. At the third and fourth medical clinics we saw over 250 people at each venue. of those 250, about 220 decision cards were gathered up. Every person, family group that comes through the clinic is pre-screened by medical personnel and then passed on to the counselors. The counselors both hear their medical need but also inquire into their spiritual need. For the third clinic we had local bible institute students. At the fourth clinic we had local pastors from various churches - different affiliations. 

With the bible students counseling, 83% of the folks made a decision to follow Christ. These weren’t rededication's (5%) as this was explicitly asked on the decision cards. That’s a lot of folks coming to Christ! Praise God. But it seems high to this analytic skeptic. At the next clinic (the final clinic) we had roughly 56% coming to Christ. Many more rededicated their life to Christ through counseling (21%). Different cities, different counselors, same process. Did it have anything to do with the bible students versus the pastors? Not sure. The statistical analysis doesn’t yield enough data to make that determination. Does this particular set of ministry teams believe in multiple “events” of coming to Christ in the life of a person? Do we have different definitions for things on our decision cards that need to be sorted out? 

All of this calls out for more preparation work with the ministry teams and maybe this can be coupled with a more thorough analytic study that can be published to benefit other short-term missions teams working in developing world contexts. I might sign up for that someday!