Dr. Lyn Behrens relies on a host of people to do her job. As president of Loma Linda University's (LLU)Adventist Health Sciences Center, she has recognized her strengths as well as the ones she lacks. "I don't try [to] be someone that I'm not," she says, explaining that she relies on a team with "expertise in the areas I don't [have expertise].

"I don't ever hire or invite people to be part of our team that aren't the best we can possibly find to help fulfill the mission here. And it makes a rich team."

Behrens speaks of Loma Linda University's future. "If I go back to the very beginning, I think there are three things that are really important about continuing into the future." The first, she says, is "this will be an academic health center. So that means a combination of health care ministry with education. ...That was clear from the mandates from the beginning."

The second, she explains, "is to emphasize the importance of prevention over [just] illness care. That again is part of our roots as an institution and so much a part of our church history." The university will remain committed to prevention, she says, adding that the institution has not only an understanding of the impact of lifestyle choices on health, but an understanding that "we can develop a scientific base for that and that's important for the community at large, the world actually."

And the third piece she sees as important for LLU's future is mission. "By participating in the lives of people who are hurting, one has an opportunity of representing Christ's love to the world, and it is transforming. So it is a sense of global calling and an opportunity of representing God's love to the world."

Behrens' reflections on LLU's future comes after a fruitful 2005 when the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Ellen G. White, a pioneering founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was captivated by the Loma Linda area on her first visit. She described it as "the most desirable place I have ever seen for a sanitarium." Now, more than 100 years later, LLU's world famous Proton Treatment Center serves as a model for proton therapy. The Center turned 15-years-old in 2005 and saw its 10,000th patient that year.

Behrens reflects on LLU's relationship to the Adventist Church. "The health ministry is the right arm of the church. Having practiced pediatrics for more than three decades, I am convinced that when tragedy and illness invade the lives of individuals, family members, that it plows our souls deeply for us to ask 'Why? Why did this happen? How did a loving God let it happen?'

"So I think that it's the concept that when one provides excellent health care, one approaches it from a position of the highest value of compassion. One can also be there to answer questions for individuals or families and help people find meaning out of their illness. One is then able to say 'We've provided whole person care. We've attended to the physical, we've attended to the intellectual, we've addressed the social relational issues, and we're there to nurture their spirituality.'"

Perhaps one of the most visible women in Adventist church leadership, Behrens gives advice to others, both men and women, wanting to make a difference in the church: Know that your sense of calling is aligned with God's will. She also says it's "imperative to have family support," and "one has to have an attitude of life-long learning."

So what is someone like Behrens -- CEO, president, medical doctor, homemaker -- most afraid of when she walks into her office each morning? "I don't know that I'm afraid. That's not a good word to characterize how I feel. Excited would be a better characterization of how I feel each day. I, like all professionals, men and women, have many different roles in life. I would say my overwhelming role that I feel I carry 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year, is my servant leadership role here at the institution. ...I have a sense of focus on the institution."

Another piece of advice she calls "critical" is "how do I take care of my own wholeness? I did today what I do every day. I got up early and before I did anything else, I spent time in my personal study alone in prayer and Bible study. Without that then I become an empty vessel." [News Editor Wendi Rogers for ANN/APD]