With a passion for healthcare and reaching the unreached, Dr Angolberth Tawampe moved his ministry to an abandoned hospital in Telefomin. With MAF support, he’s now able to share his skills with isolated people beyond the four walls of Telefomin valley.
As a surgeon, Dr Angolberth is familiar with the urgency involved with a patient arriving to be treated at the Telefomin District Hospital. Today, he’s experiencing the urgency of a medevac flight, riding as a passenger with MAF pilot Richard Wall.
With a medical degree and an opportunity to travel to Australia, Dr Angolberth and his wife were looking for a career dedicated to serving their country.
“We started praying and asking God, ‘What does our country need?’” says Dr Angolberth from the cockpit’s passenger seat.
“There are no doctors in rural areas,” he says. “They need basic help—not specialist, but basic surgical care, basic paediatric care.
“So, we started to say… ‘Let’s go serve our country first.’”
They were approached by Min Baptist Health Services with an opportunity to work in remote Telefomin: With a ‘catch’ that the hospital building had not been used in around seven years.
“We prayed and said, ‘Oh that’s fine! We can go as long as there are people there and God is there,’” he says.
Without a permanent doctor in the region for 20 years, Dr Angolberth started a surgical ministry in Telefomin. On 16th June 2026, he performed his first surgery at Telefomin Baptist District Hospital — an umbilical hernia repair — which was a dream becoming reality.
But today’s patient isn’t in the hospital waiting room. In fact, the patient isn’t even in the same town.
Last night, a call came in from the mountains to Telefomin’s east. A 22-year-old man had suffered a partial wrist amputation.
Richard flies Dr Angolberth to Tekin, a village surrounded by mountains just 20 minutes from Telefomin by plane, but a week by foot. The steep hillside airstrip is notorious for its dramatic surrounding terrain and challenging winds.
In order to get enough mobile phone reception to make the call, Tekin locals had to climb up to the top of one of these mountains. The call was crucial, but without MAF’s response, the man would not have been able to receive the life-changing surgery.
“MAF could be one of the angels from heaven, with wings,” Dr Angolberth says.
When asked what would happen if MAF was not in this region of more than 80,000 people, he says, “The people would be in deep struggle. They wouldn’t see life, they wouldn’t see love, they wouldn’t see God.
“Life without MAF would be meaningless, hopeless.”
As they approach Telefomin valley after collecting the patient, Dr Angolberth reflects on a powerful act of service: How the hospital received everything by plane.
“The houses, the churches, the district is built by MAF,” he says. “The hospital was built through MAF.”
In the 1950s, MAF began air services to the Baptist mission in Telefomin and its surrounding communities—flying missionaries, local pastors and evangelists, trade store goods, medical and building supplies.
The year 2026 marks 75 years of flight operations in Papua New Guinea.
Following a successful surgery, the man returned to Tekin where he was welcomed back by his family.
STORY / VICKY POWELL PHOTOS / RICHARD WALL