(February 18, 2001)

Satan tries to keep people from accomplishing God’s purposes," says Dr. Efiong Andem of Marianna, Fla., "by attacking our bodies and our minds. For healing to succeed and last, the mind, the body and the soul must be healed.

Dr. Efiong Andem (left) and Pastor Stephen Potter formed a partnership serving a diverse community.

Andem is a medical doctor serving as chief health officer at nearby Holmes Correctional Institution in Bonifay. He is also a Christian who ministers to the whole person. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights, and on Saturday mornings, Andem is the directing physician at Faith Health Clinic.

The small building at 4182 Baltzell Street in Marianna serves hundreds of individuals and families; each of the clinic’s approximately 30 personnel is a volunteer. Community support now includes several doctors and a local hospital that accept referrals free of charge and numbers of doctors and pharmaceutical agencies that donate medicines. The University of Florida plans to send nursing students as part of their training in 2001.

In a day of rising health costs and medical red tape, Faith Health Clinic is an oasis of hope and Christlike care. Its mission partner, First Assembly of God in Marianna, not only donates use of the building but underwrites most of the center’s expenses.

"We serve people from all kinds of backgrounds," says Stephen Potter, pastor of First Assembly. "Some have retired early, are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid and can’t afford health insurance. Others are single moms and families in need. Few are really looking for a handout."

Potter’s vision for the health clinic ministry took root in the early 1990s. Efiong and Elizabeth Andem began attending First Assembly in 1995, and the pastor and doctor discovered their common burden to reach out to Marianna through medical ministry.

"One day we were talking," Potter says, "and I shared my vision. And he said, ‘That’s what I have been praying about.’ "

Faith Health Clinic opened its doors in the fall of 1997, originally for two nights per week. Services have expanded to the current four-day schedule, and Andem sees no limit to the clinic’s ministry potential.

"In the eyes of faith," he says, "I see far beyond its humble beginnings. I see Faith Health Clinic as a place where God confronts those who have given up on Him and brings them to a knowledge of himself."

Born in Nigeria, Andem experienced God’s saving power while traveling to the United States in 1961. He missed a flight that subsequently crashed, killing all on board. The experience drew him to the Lord. During his years in the United States, he continued to pray for God’s leading.

"Before we moved to Marianna in 1995, Elizabeth and I fasted and prayed for a congregation where we would be accepted and have something to do actively for God," Andem says. God led them to First Assembly and forged his and Potter’s visions of ministry into a common goal. The Andems recently traveled back to Nigeria with a gift of Bibles and hymnals from First Assembly of God for an Assemblies of God church there.

Potter emphasizes that the clinic’s purpose is not to build up First Assembly, but to touch people and build God’s kingdom. When patients at the clinic experience the love of Christ firsthand, they are often so touched they begin attending a local church, or return to their own.

"The practice of medicine to me is a missionary endeavor," Andem says. "Faith Health Clinic was conceived, birthed and is sustained by the Holy Spirit as an outreach ministry."