by Stuart and Sindia Foster
15 April 2005

The new hospital in Lubango, Angola (a city of one million people) is eagerly awaited. Fifty young representatives of Lubango area churches recently toured the Evangelical Medical Center with its clinical director, Dr. Stephen Foster of SIM. The facility will officially be dedicated on June 11 during the upcoming Festival of Hope with Franklin Graham.

The hospital has been in the planning stages since 2000. Churches of the Angolan Evangelical Alliance have dreamed of a medical ministry that will be a witness to the city.

Since early 2003, the medical center has been under construction and has cost 3.7 million USD so far in private gifts through the Christian development group Samaritan's Purse and through grants from USAID.

The hope is to make a real difference in health care in the city and the region. The churches of AEA (Angolan Evangelical Alliance) are sponsoring this effort and hope it has an impact for Christ in the Lubango area. A large sign announces the project with the verse Luke 9:2, "Jesus sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick."

Dr. Foster, a Canadian surgeon who has worked in Angola as a SIM missionary since 1978, has been partnering with the AEA and Samaritan's Purse since 2000 to develop this ministry. As he showed the facilities to the visiting group of 50 church representatives, he explained the goals of the hospital: "God made people and they have infinite value which is why we need to give value to the patients who come here and treat them with respect."

The hospital hopes to minister to the increasing numbers of HIV and AIDS patients. Foster adds, "We need to be a model in society of how to care for these needy people and be an example to the community." As Christians, there is a role to play, using the hospital in caring for people in this growing crisis.

With 40 beds initially, the hospital will offer semi-private rooms for higher-paying patients to cover the costs of those who cannot pay. Wards will be built by June when the hospital opens as part of the Franklin Graham Festival of evangelism in Lubango.

Showing the visitors each feature the hospital will have, Foster based his promises on prayer: "As God provides, there will be a dentist for this city," he says, "Ask God to provide the funds to build the wards for the 130 beds we want to offer, the intensive care ward, the maternity ward and the nursing school."

Some of the amazing features of the hospital are the credit system, so that patients pay with debit cards (unheard of in a cash society) organized by computers. There will be heated rooms in the wards for the colder months of the year, and showers wide enough to be used easily by paraplegics.

The official dedication of the Evangelical Medical Center will be June 11, 2005 during the Festival of Hope, an evangelistic campaign with Franklin Graham.