RONALD STRINGER / 1949-2005

Honolulu dentist spent years treating poor in Africa, Asia

Dr. Ronald Stringer left a successful career as a Honolulu dentist to spend 12 years providing dental care for the poorest of patients in Africa and Asia.

Stringer and his wife, Linda, joined a Presbyterian Church USA mission in Zaire for three years in the 1980s, taking their three children along. He trained Zairian dentists until political unrest ended the family's stay in the Congo.

Later they joined the United Mission to Nepal, where he joined dentists from several nations. Stringer wrote oral health-care guidelines and a training manual, and later became chief of the dental department at the Patan Hospital in Kathmandu.

Stringer, 56, died Oct. 11 in Honolulu.

He was motivated by a desire "to share the love of Christ in a hurting world," he wrote in a 2002 article for the Hawaii Dental Journal. "It was easy enough for us as well-fed, prosperous Americans to tell people that God loved them but I wanted a way to demonstrate it in actions as well."

He wrote that striving to be an outstanding dentist at the beginning of his career "was never as emotionally rewarding for me as those 12 years of my life when I was standing out among the needy."

Stringer was born in Berkeley, Calif. He came to Hawaii in 1974 for his residency at St. Francis Hospital and had a Bishop Street practice for 10 years.

During a 1991 return to Honolulu, he earned a master's degree in public health from the University of Hawaii.

He is survived by wife Linda, son Daniel, daughters Cheryl and Amy, mother Beverly Stone, brothers Philip and Paul Stringer, and sister Cheryl Vivers.

Services will be at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Kalihi Union Church. Friends may call after 4:30 p.m.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, memorial donations be made to River of Life Mission. Moanalua Mortuary is handling arrangements.