When my college mate, Ted Mohr, invited me to visit Penang Adventist Hospital (PAH) where he serves as president, I anticipated nothing more than one more tour of another denominational facility. Frankly, I expected a boring recitation of facts concerning buildings, patient counts, and medical specialties mixed with institutional good intentions for service to this area of Peninsula Malaysia.
What I discovered is ministry taking place in a variety of routine and unique services provided by dedicated medical leaders who have learned the secret of involving everyone possible—believers and nonbelievers alike—in a joint vision of service.
For any hospital to operate, certain basics must be present—competent professionals, adequate facilities, caring support staff, and patients. For a medical center to thrive, additional essentials include cutting-edge technology, financial stability, extraordinary customer focused service, vision communication, and strong community support. I found all this and more.
Just five years ago, PAH was on the brink of bankruptcy with many advocating closure in hopes of merely clearing the debt. Nearly eighty years after the Adventists began this hospital under a sign reading, "free care for the poor," the institution itself needed care.
Today, PAH is the region's premier open-heart surgery center with two full-time heart teams available at any time. It is experiencing financial stability and a burgeoning international partnership with Loma Linda University, Florida Hospital, Rotary International, and the Islamic organization, Mercy Malaysia, to provide the gift of life for children who need mended hearts.
Through providential encounters between hospital administrators and Doing well by doing right Rotary International's Immediate Past President, Abe I. Gordon, PAH provides desperately ill children with essential, lifesaving surgery that allows new hope for a normal life-span.
Well before the tragedies of September 11 and subsequent traumatic international events, Christian and Islamic groups had partnered with professional service clubs, educational, government, and NGOs to benefit the city of Penang as well as the wider community in Southeast Asia.
Dr. Joan Coggin and the Loma Linda University Heart Team, led in developing this program whereby children from Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia receive lifesaving surgery.
For example, I was privileged to meet Sop Pharat, age 14, and Hai Sambath, age 2, representative of many Cambodian kids who have received heart repair through these exciting joint ventures. Rachael Phoon, care coordinator for the kids' families says, "They are able to smile today because PAH'S Gift of Life pro gram cared for them." However, when Hai met me, he definitely was not smiling at my intrusion.
New hearts for kids is not the only exciting ministry taking place at PAH. A variety of high-tech companies head quartered in Penang, Malaysia's free-trade zone, have benefited from the hospital's wellness program. For example, Motorola Corporation, with over 14,000 employees, substantially reduced its medical costs by emphasizing preventative medicine and healthy life-styles in cooperation with PAH's wellness teams.
Lois Mohr has discovered God's reason for her being in Penang. "I always knew why Ted was called here, but now I understand my ministry," she says. In less than a year, Lois has expanded L PAH'S volunteer services from seven to seventy volunteers who have contributed the equivalent of 200 work weeks for the ministry of the hospital. Lois also invites student nurses into her home each week for fellowship during which she shares fun, spiritual growth, and life-issues guidance.
PAH's Bakery is regionally famous and has influenced sister organizations in other cities to provide top-of-the-line products and income-producing results.
Professionals on the medical, administrative, and service staffs are strongly linked to various community projects including leadership in Penang's fantastic new church structure, perhaps the finest Adventist church in the division.
You can begin to see why my anticipation of a boring tour concluded with exciting discoveries of real-life ministry when the best of medical and spiritual ministries combine to successfully minister in Jesus' way.
