|
We believe that God crafts each one of us uniquely to fill the role He intends for us.
Howard Hendricks reminded Murray: “Nothing is wasted. Even fallen leaves have
a purpose in His plan.” Murray’s pediatric medical training has always been a key
in opening doors for ministry and in bringing him close to many who would never
darken the door of a church. “God has designed me with a natural bent to thorough
attention to detail and a bull-dogged determination that makes me an excellent
diagnostician and primary care doctor. He has also gifted me to teach His Word
in such a way that others learn how to pass it on to students of their own.”
Background and preparation:
Murray completed medical school at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
School in Dallas and then pediatric residency training at Children’s Hospital of
Orange County, the University of California-Irvine Medical Center, and Long Beach
Miller Children’s Hospital. He has been Board Certified in Pediatrics since 1991.
He was in private practice in California from 1991-93.
In the years since then, Murray served for over 5 years as the ambulatory pediatric
faculty for the Austin, TX Family Practice residency program and as Adjunct
Assistant Professor for the University of Texas at Austin (precepting in their Nurse
Practitioner training program), while he was working as the primary pediatrician
in Seton’s indigent care clinics there in Austin. He loved serving the primarily
Hispanic working poor there. And he discovered an aptitude for clinical teaching,
as he developed a strong reputation in the community as a thorough, detail-oriented
pediatrician managing a wide diversity of complex patients with the support of the
Austin pediatric subspecialist consultant community.
He completed formal seminary training at Dallas Theological Seminary from 1999
to May 2004. Murray graduated May 2004 with a Master of Arts in Christian Education
with highest honors. (This amounts to advanced training in practical Bible study
techniques, teaching methods, lesson planning, curriculum design, and Bible and
theology, thus enhancing Murray’s teaching skills and credentials). He was awarded
the Howard Hendricks Award for outstanding student in the Christian Education
program, and the Troutman Award as the student with the highest GPA among
the seven MA programs at the seminary.
While studying at DTS, he continued to practice pediatrics as a supervising pediatrician
in Parkland’s ten School-Based Health Clinics, caring for patients and serving as
a consultant for the Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants in the clinics. He also
helped establish a special adjunct to the main Children’s Medical Center Emergency
Room, here physicians refer their non-critical patients requiring more workup or
intervention than practical in the office.
Having completed seminary training, the Greenwood family began the search for the
right mission agency and geographic setting to accomplish their dreams for missionary
service. They chose Ecuador in part because of the opportunity to teach and mobilize
nationals; in part because of the presence of a respected tertiary-care missionary hospital
capable of providing consultant and intensive care back-up for their anticipated rural
health mobile clinic ministry; and in part because they would be working as members
of a respected, long-established Bible-believing international mission agency called
SIM (Serving in Mission) (see www.sim.org). In November 2004 they were formally
accepted with SIM.
|
|
|