Cchftalk

Duane Claassen has a fascinating story that’s woven throughout the early days of CCHF. He grew up on a Mennonite farm in Central California and followed God’s call to become a doctor. That eventually led him to New Hebron, Mississippi, where he worked with Voice of Calvary—alongside some of the very earliest organizers of CCHF, including H. Spees and others. He presented a workshop at the very first CCHF conference in Washington, D.C., in 1982. There, he met, befriended, and eventually partnered with Dr. Bob Williams, moving to Denver to help launch Inner City Health in the early 1980s. I truly enjoyed my visit with Duane—I hope you will too. I especially appreciated our discussion about what it means to be a Christian health center. It’s more than simply offering prayer or spiritual counsel to your patients. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it, but it has to do with Christ being the fabric—not just a component or an option, but the very foundation—of everything you do as an organization. That’