Dr. Robert Livingstone Foster (USA) passed into the presence of His Lord on January 8 2012 in Angola. Although Dr. Bob was a member of SIM USA he was a much loved missionary within the Canadian SIM Family. Dr. Steve & Peggy Foster serve with SIM Canada in Angola.
In the forward to the book that documents Dr. Bob Foster’s career - Sword and Scalpel: A Surgeon’s Story of Faith and Courage in Africa - Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and World Medical Mission and son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, writes: "I believe Bob is the number one missionary statesman in the evangelical world today and the man God has used in a mighty way to open up new frontiers for the Gospel in some of the roughest areas of Africa.”
A graduate of the University of Toronto’s College of Medicine, Dr. Foster completed his medical residency at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 1949 and immediately went to Zambia where he founded and served for 12 years as medical director of Mukinge Hospital. While in Mukinge, he also founded the school of nursing.
In 1962, he founded and served as medical director at Luampa Hospital in Zambia, leaving in 1967 to serve as interim director of Africa Evangelical Fellowship.
In 1970, Dr. Foster became medical director of Cavango and Kalukembe Hospitals in Angola. He remained in that role in 1981 when he became international director of Africa Evangelical Fellowship and medical coordinator for mission medical work in Zambia, Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Since 1990, he has performed short term medical work at Jamba, Lubango and Rio da Huila clinics in Angola. From 1990 to 2008, Dr. Foster served as the United States representative to AEF-SIM.
Below is a brief summary from his children concerning their father’s life:
Our father, known to so many as Dr. Bob, went home to Glory on January 8, in Lubango, Angola, Africa at the age of 87. He had increasing loss of control of his muscles over several years, but was aware to the end. In his last days, the family members in Angola (including 4 children and 5 grandchildren) took turns sitting by his bed.
He leaves his wife of 63 years, Belva Foster, who is in poor health, their 7 children, 17 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren, his sister, Rhoda Lane, 4 hospitals in rural Africa, countless churches, many missionaries called into service by God through his counsel, and many, many others who knew him as a preacher or as a doctor.
The funeral will be in Lubango this week.
God gave him amazing energy—at 82 he spent six weeks camping in the Angolan bush to help build a clinic!
God gave him amazing courage and initiative—he and Mom went in their mid-40's to an Angola at war to learn a new language and start a new outreach, when they could have stayed where they were fruitful and secure.
God made him an amazing Dad—an example, a challenge, a comfort, a great teller of stories and giver of gifts and hugs.
Many will want to share words of memory and appreciation and will not be able to get to the funeral.
Please send words and pictures to: sjffive@gmail.com
Read what others have to say at drbobfoster.blogspot.com
link:
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