ABSTRACT
Servant is a Christian missionary movement that has various ministries among the urban poor of Asia. This chapter is limited to the area of health care, and draws mainly on the organizations experience in Manila in the Philippines. It explores some of the concepts that are important for Servants, and influence the way its members work. The role often played by medical practitioners as people who come from outside the community and tend to offer top down, specialized and professional services is considered in some detail, and alternative, more relational and holistic ways of approaching the problem of extending effective health care in poor urban areas are discussed. The organization was founded in 1980, when a group of New Zealand Christians met to discuss how best their small country could play a part in transforming the slums of Asia.
