Charlie and Elizabeth Sands have spent most of their adult life in Asia. In 1970 they, along with their two young daughters ages two and four and their 2-month-old son, felt called of God and left the United States and sailed for Korea. Following language and culture study at Yonsei University in Seoul in the early 1970s, they spent twenty-five years at the Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital (where their 4th child was born) in Pusan, Korea.

In the 1990s they felt God’s call to northeast China and served on the faculty of the Yanbian University Medical College in Yanji --- Elizabeth teaching English and Charlie teaching clinical pharmacology and research design. Several of Dr. Sands’ Chinese graduate students are currently serving on the faculty of various medical schools in China.

From 2019 to the present, Dr. and Mrs. Sands have been involved in developing the Jilin International Medical Conference Center in Jilin City, China. During this time of ministry in Asia Dr Sands served also on the faculty as Professor and later Dean of the McWhorter School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences, Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.