Dr. Daniel E. Fountain was a Primary Health Care pioneer. For 35 years (1961-1996) he and his wife Miriam served as medical missionaries at the rural hospital of Vanga in the DR Congo (formerly Zaire). Soon after arriving at Vanga, Dan had to perform surgery on a Congolese boy with an intestinal obstruction. His operation saved the boy’s life, and Dan was pleased with this success. However, four months later the child’s mother returned to the hospital with her son in the same condition – another belly full of worms. This time Dan also “saved” the Ascaris worms in a glass jar as a visible reminder that unless community-based changes were brought to health-related understanding, behavior, and conditions, the impact on improving lives would be minimal. This began Dan’s pilgrimage from “medical care” to promoting “health care.” With funding from OXFAM, Dan began an intensive community outreach program with mobile teams reaching 200 villages by truck each month. This later evolved into the establishment of health centers and a more cost-efficient outreach using bicycles. Eventually these initiatives led to the creation of the Vanga rural health zone, one of the first faith-based-managed health zones, serving a population of 250,000. The Vanga model helped to pioneer the creation of 515 decentralized health zones across DR Congo. Dan also made significant contributions to primary health care through his numerous health-related books, such as Infirmier, Comment Bâtir la Santé (1982, 2004). This book is used as a textbook in nursing schools across DR Congo. His other books include Health, the Bible and the Church (1988), Let's Build Our Lives (1990), God, Medicine, and Miracles (1999), Who Is This Man Jesus (2003) and The Vanga Story (forthcoming). The Fountains returned to the U.S. in 1996. Since that time Dan served as an overseas faculty member for the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, as Director of the Global Health Training Program at King College, as facilitator for workshops in Health, Agriculture, Culture, and Community with ECHO’s Global Health Training Program, as a founding member of Project MedSend, and as a contributing member of CCIH. Dan’s wife Miriam passed away in 2010. They are survived by three grown children (Katherine, Paul and Larry) and seven grandchildren. A celebration of Dan’s life will be held on April 6, 2013 at the Village Church, Shell Point Retirement Community, Fort Myers, FL. In celebration of Dr. Daniel Fountain’s life, legacy, and passion, his children have established the Daniel Fountain Medical Mission Fund with International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches. Gifts to that fund will be used to promote Dan’s vision of comprehensive health care and training in Congo.