But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 4:19, KJV.
When we arrived, there are only seven rooms in the building that could be used. After the construction was completed, we had capacity for a fifty-five-bed hospital. But there was almost no equipment to furnish the hospital, and the equipment we did have needed to be replaced. We needed a surgical table, a surgical light, x-ray machine, and certain other basics to make this building a hospital.
For instance, once, while delivering a baby, the portable army table that held the patient, collapsed, and my arm was caught in the metal side. Fortunately, help was present and my arm was released without being permanently harmed.
We prayed at a prayer meeting with the hospital workers for help from above. Just a few days later, a letter arrived from a former mentor, Dr. Howard Knott, from Seattle (Washington) General Hospital, where I had interned. He expressed that he had heard I had married and had accepted a position at a mission hospital. He asked if there was anything he could do to help us. I immediately wrote back, telling him of our needs.
Writing again from Palm Springs, California, he indicated that he and some friends would like to help and asked how much money we needed. At the time, we could purchase items from Europe less expensively than having equipment shipped from the United States, so I told him we needed $12,000. A few weeks later, we received a check for $15,000. We had a wonderful prayer meeting of praise with our workers; and I wrote a letter thanking him for his wonderful gift, truly an answer to prayer.
Sadly, our letter arrived back in California the day of his funeral. His widow wrote that he had such joy in giving his gift and that he felt it was the best thing that he had ever done. We purchased the items needed and had the only well-equipped hospital in an area of over two million people. God had provided in a most wonderful way.
The story doesn’t end there. Dr Knott’s wife, through her friends, continued to give funds; and we were able to have a water well drilled to provide all the water that we needed for the hospital. We were also able to find a clinic for the Danakil tribe in the desert town of Asaita. We spent five years at this mission hospital and have often said they were the happiest years of our lives.
This account is only one of innumerable stories of answered prayer during those years – years in which we found that God does truly supply our needs.
– Alex P. Bokovoy, LLUSM class of 1946, is a surgeon and resides with his wife, Sandi, in Denton, Texas.