Our work in Angola is a primary healthcare outreach with SIM, MAF, AGA and CEML.  SIM is our excellent US sending mission organization (www.sim.org), Advancing the Gospel in Angola (AGA) is out of Colorado and has been hugely involved in supporting the work at both CEML and Cavango.  CEML is the beautiful mission hospital in Lubango that invited us to Angola to work in primary care with rural people groups.  God works miracles every day at CEML through surgeons Steve Foster, Steve Collins, Sam Fabiano and Annelise Olson, as well as other physicians and nurses, serving all arrivals from literally all over this part of Africa.

CEML Hospital

CEML Hospital

We currently live and work in Cavango, where Tim is treating people with illness/injury, making disciples, sharing the Good News and leading community efforts to improve the physical and spiritual health of the people in Cavango and surrounding villages, and simply loving and serving the beautiful people of this region of Angola (see Angola map @ kubackisinangola.com).

Tim prays with each patient, emphasizing to them that only God gives life and heals, and that (like us) he often uses tools to do His work (doctors, nurses, medicines, friends, etc).  He especially loves utilizing His people to help hurting people. Knowing that only He heals and that He hears our requests for help, we ask Him to resolve the patient’s health problem and to reveal Himself more and more to the person for whom we are praying.

One of the joys of my (Tim’s) work is a daily morning discussion with the patients and their families.  We talk for about 30 minutes about how we can improve our physical and spiritual health.  Improving physical health involves discussion of various symptoms that adults and children face in this culture and how they can make sound decisions as to how to respond to the various symptoms.  The spiritual health discussion involves a teaching on God’s Kingdom, revolving around a passage from the bible, followed by questions and discussion.  There is nothing better than the interaction with this revolving group of people and they are always grateful for the input and interaction, as few have the opportunity for such interaction in their rural villages.

Our morning discussion group with patients and their families

Betsy teaches English and enjoys building relationships with especially the women in Cavango and the surrounding area. She handles the administrative duties associated with the small Cavango clinic/hospital and also assists SIM Angola administratively, as “Personnel Coordinator” of SIM Angola, with current and new missionary personnel as to missionary care and the sometimes complicated logistics involved in serving in a country that often presents challenges to people from other countries serving in Angola.

Betsy teaching English class

We have enjoyed the presence of the DeSouza family in Cavango since Febuary, 2021 as they join us in our work among these rural people.  Eduardo is a physician and Jocelyn is an NP and both hope to help with the clinical work in Cavango.

The Desouza Family. L-R: Tiago, Eduardo, Ella, Sienna, Jocelyn, Teu (Mateus)

Tim travels by small plane with Mission Aviation Fellowship Canada (MAFC) (mafc.org), as he is able, to remote sites in southern Angola to hold clinics among people groups living in areas difficult to access by car. The work is sadly plentiful and the health care need great after 30 years of war and little current health care infrastructure. In these rural areas, there are many tribal groups with no or little gospel presence and it is these groups that we are targeting with our health care ministry and public health interventions, while demonstrating and communicating with them our Father’s love.

We are especially targeting unreached people groups in the impoverished and severely remote southeast part of the country (Cuando Cubango Province) and have been embraced by the government in granting us permission to work among these groups and we are praying that our Father continues to open more opportunities among these peoples and directs us to others that He would prioritize in this place at this time.

For this primary health care outreach, we have three small planes and two pilots and over our first five years we have made many trips especially to the southern part of the country and served many with medicine, educational talks, and sharing the truth of our Father and His grace and love for these beautiful people.

The need is far greater than what we can meet. We would love to see several doctors, nurses and non-medical missionaries join our effort to reach out to especially these remote peoples of Angola.

Our plane and our two local translators for an isolated people group living in a dormant volcano

One of our rural clinic “buildings”

Tim’s medical boxes and clinic setup

The group gathered to hear Tim speak on improving our physical and spiritual health (before every clinic)

Tim prays with every person, asking our Father to resolve their health problem and to reveal Himself to them

Our only diagnostic tool is an extremely valuable portable ultrasound machine