Howard and Dell Shoemake

In the middle of the revolution, Howard Shoemake was called “the most influential foreigner in the Dominican Republic.”

DECADES OF SERVICE
1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s

MINISTRY EMPHASIS
Evangelism & Church Planting, Medical, Media and Creative Arts

In the middle of the revolution, Howard Shoemake was called “the most influential foreigner in the Dominican Republic.”

During Howard Shoemake’s time as an area representative for the U.S.-based Medical Assistance Programs, a gastroenteritis epidemic threatened the lives of thousands of children in the Dominican Republic. The Shoemakes and other missionaries joined MAP staff in setting up clinics in the neediest areas. Patients paid one dollar to be examined by a doctor and receive life-saving medicines. In addition to the treatment during this epidemic, Howard supervised a medical program that supplied medicines to 250,000 patients. He even delivered medical supplies during the Dominican Republic’s civil war and used his ham radio to arrange emergency evacuations during a hurricane.

Howard, who served as vice president of the Rehabilitation Center for Invalids in Santo Domingo, became a patient in the center he helped start, when he was treated for multiple myeloma, cancer of the bone marrow. While his cancer was in remission, Howard received the Dominican Republic’s highest civilian award — the badge of the Order of Duarte, Sanchez and Mella — named for the nation’s founding fathers, to honor his service in the medical and social fields. The minister of health called Howard “a son of the Dominican Republic.”

Though not doctors, Howard and his wife Dell faithfully worked with partners to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of people in the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Ecuador. For more than 30 years, the Shoemakes were actively involved in evangelism, church planting, mass media ministry, counseling and political reform.