Despair Turned to Joy

A broken leg for a man named Sunday brought consequences far beyond pain and inconvenience—his children stopped attending school and his family rarely ate as he begged on the streets to survive.

The father of three was felling trees, his job of 10 years, when a freak accident sent a heavy limb crashing into his leg, shattering his left tibia. Unable to work and with no job prospects, he resorted to sitting on the street corner to beg from passers-by.

After nearly two years of enduring life with this fracture, Sunday arrived to ECWA Hospital in Egbe, Nigeria, for a rare opportunity for permanent healing through a group of Samaritan’s Purse orthopaedic surgeons who were in town for two weeks to provide life-changing surgeries at no cost to people like Sunday.

As he lumbered into the ward, his crutches and squalid look blended in with the other men awaiting surgery—some had multiple injuries; others harboured decade-long fractures. Yet even among these crippled husbands and fathers, Sunday could not hide his hopelessness.

“It makes me feel sad,” he said about his children having to leave school to help him earn money. “I even have siblings, but none of them came to see how I was doing. I was always begging for money—even my wife and children had to help me beg.”

Life-Changing Surgeries Provided in Jesus’ Name

With no specialised medical care in his remote southeast Nigerian village—and not enough money to travel to the city—Sunday had turned to traditional healers to fix his fracture. They fashioned a crude cast with sticks, and coated his leg in spices and oils. Instead of healing, the bone became harder to repair.

“People are just trying to eat each day and they cannot address their healthcare needs, so, they turn to the local healers who only make things worse,” said Hans Monono, the director of administration at ECWA Hospital. “For old fractures, a surgery will cost close to $8,000. Simply put, people can’t afford it.”

Help arrived when Samaritan’s Purse sent a World Medical Mission team to Egbe. Dr. Tony de Bari, an orthopaedic surgeon from Michigan serving on the team, inserted a metal rod to correct the fracture. Though the scar tissue presented challenges, the seasoned surgeon relied on the Great Physician to guide him through the case and each surgery he performed while in the West African nation.

“I’ve got a plan going into surgery but at some point, I have to say, ‘God, you’ve got to take over and help me with this case,’” said Dr. de Bari, who has performed hundreds of surgeries in foreign operating rooms and disaster zones with Samaritan’s Purse. “And the next thing I know, I’m closing the skin. It’s cool to know that I can provide these types of surgeries, but I recognise that it’s God who heals.”

Sunday’s surgery—unavailable hardly anywhere in Nigeria—changed his life in an instant, but something was still missing.

Evangelism Coupled with Care

The World Medical Mission orthopaedic speciality team in Nigeria—comprised of 12 medical professionals, including two orthopaedic surgeons and two residents—performed 64 surgeries during their time in the West African nation. But the purpose of the team goes far beyond fixing broken bones.

“Hopefully the patients experience a compassion here that they’ve never experienced before,” said Dr. Greg Hellwarth, the other orthopaedic surgeon on the team working alongside Dr. de Bari. “And I hope they ask questions and find out that that love, care, and compassion they experience comes from a God who loves them and cares for them.”

World Medical Mission also extensively supports the chaplaincy programme at the dozens of mission hospitals we partner with around the world through Biblical education, evangelism resources, and more. The seven-strong chaplaincy team in Nigeria especially benefits from the programme as they navigate the wide variety of cultures and backgrounds of the patients they serve.

An Eternal Hope

The group of chaplains at Egbe surrounded Sunday’s bed the day following his surgery and shared the Gospel in a clear way to the recovering father. Halfway through, he sat up.

He had heard of Jesus from his wife and others in his community, Sunday explained to the chaplains, but never fully understood his need for a Saviour. As one chaplain took him through Scripture, the Lord opened his eyes. There, on his hospital bed, Sunday confessed his sins and believed in the Name of Jesus Christ.

“I see myself in the hands of God,” he said with a grin after he prayed to receive Christ. His wife, who had been a devout Christ-follower for some time, was overjoyed. She had prayed for him for years. “I’ve waited for this day,” she said.

Before being discharged, Sunday and his wife received a printed Bible and an audio Bible in Yoruba, their native tongue—as did each patient we served during the campaign. While he recovered in the ward, Sunday held the audio player to his ear—often with his wife leaning in to hear as well.

“He hasn’t been able to stop listening to it,” Sunday’s wife said, “and neither have I!”

On crutches, with a clean cast wrapped around his once-broken leg, Sunday left Egbe a changed man—no longer hopeless but filled with joy in the Lord.

Please pray for World Medical Mission orthopaedic teams as they deploy around the world to bring help and healing in Jesus’ Name. Ask that many people whose bones are repaired will come to saving faith in Christ, even as Sunday did.

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