Bob and Hope Carter - SIM Missionaries

Carter Family

Bob and Hope have been involved in missionary work in Africa since 1985, when they first went to Kenya's Friends Lugulu Hospital to work as medical missionaries. They served at Lugulu Hospital for six years under appointment with Friends United Meeting. When Bob's mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1991, however, they returned to the States.

During their 6-year absence from active missionary duty, Bob was a physician with Pine Ridge Family Practice in Winston-Salem, NC until his mother's death in April 1992. He then began working on his Master's degree in Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Maternal and Child Health, with a special focus on international health. He was awarded his MPH degree in 1995.

Bob and Hope returned to active missionary service in October of 1997 after both completed one more year of study, earning a Certificate in Adult Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute. They entered Zambia as career missionaries with SIM, an international, interdenominational evangelical mission agency. For the next ten years they served at Mukinge Mission Hospital in a remote area of Zambia’s Northwest Province. There they were involved not only in medical work but also in public health (consulting for the district ministry of health); film evangelism; discipleship training; AIDS prevention, care and treatment; community development; assistance to orphans; literacy; and many other activities. For several years Bob chaired the AIDS Advisory Committee of the Churches Health Association of Zambia.

After a very fruitful ministry in Zambia, the Lord re-directed them back to Kenya. From October 2007 until February 2009 they lived in Nairobi, where Bob pioneered the HOPE for AIDS program of SIM Kenya. This program seeks to equip the Church to respond effectively to the challenge of AIDS at the community level in the full power of the Gospel. Hope established the prayer focus of HOPE for AIDS – Kenya, and continues to serve as its Prayer Coordinator to this day. She also continues to produce a monthly AIDS-focused prayer guide distributed through several listserves.

In January of this year Bob handed over leadership of the HOPE for AIDS program to a seasoned and capable team member, and the following month the Carters moved from Nairobi to Kijabe, where Bob joined the medical teaching staff of Kijabe Hospital as a Family Medicine consultant. Meanwhile Hope, a physican assistant ("clinical officer" in Kenya), is serving part time on the AIDS team, attending to admitted AIDS patients. She is also conducting nutritional research on children enrolled in the hospital's AIDS support program in the community of Naivasha.

Bob and Hope have four children: Nathan, 24; Levi, 21; Hannah, 19; and Josiah, 17.