Orthopedic Specialists Visit Togo
Russ and Melody Ebersole, Togo
The hospital in Togo has been full to overflowing for days. Yesterday alone, missionary doctor Russ Ebersole dealt with multiple crises: a sixteen-year-old boy who fell from a mango tree, a seven-week-old baby girl with a perforated intestine, a three-day-old infant throwing up blood due to vitamin K deficiency, a three-year-old boy just diagnosed with AIDS, an eight-year-old boy with a sickle cell pain crisis, and a three-year-old girl comatose and seizing due to cerebral malaria. Pediatrics was never like this in the United States!
The challenges at Hôpital Baptiste Biblique are constantly present, but the blessings are always there as well. Medical missionaries experience the sadness that results from little lives that are lost despite their best efforts, but over the past months they have also experienced the joy of lives being renewed physically and spiritually.
Missionaries Russ and Melody Ebersole had been praying for an orthopedic specialist to come to the hospital, as they had not had one visit for over six years. In answers to their prayers, in April, two orthopedic surgeons came for a short-term trip, and in two weeks’ time, over 35 patients had surgery—the majority of them children. One of these children was Dzodzi.
It was an exciting month for Dzodzi (pronounced “Georgie”), a young girl who has been part of the Ebersoles' children’s ministry from the start and who has been severely bowlegged since birth. For a while, she had been walking independently, but recently she was hobbling on crutches. After six hours of orthopedic surgery, spread out over two days (due to a broken electrical drill/saw that had to be repaired in between), Dzodzi had straight legs for the first time in her life! She is still in a wheelchair and will have several months of rehabilitation ahead of her, but this has been a wonderful answer to prayer.
Dzodzi and her mother accepted Christ as Savior during the Ebersole’s first missionary term, but her parents had not yet starting coming to church along with her. However, over the past several weeks, the three of them have been going to church as a family—wheelchair and all. They have also been coming every Wednesday for the children’s program, and Dzodzi’s father has been sitting in on a discipleship class. Her mother has also expressed a desire to meet with Melody for a Bible study. Please pray for this family as they continue to grow in the Lord and for Dzodzi’s complete healing.
There are many boys with chronic bone infections that were operated on by the orthopedists and are still at the hospital for rehabilitation. Melody visits the hospitalized children, sharing the gospel and providing them with Scripture lessons. Some of them have accepted Christ as their Savior, and others have shown a real interest in spiritual things. They also are coming to the children’s ministry classes, and even to church with the Ebersoles when they are able. But due to their late arrival for care, many of them may never be completely healed, and some are at risk for amputations in the future. Please pray for their healing. Pray also for their spiritual growth as they continue to be taught while they remain at the hospital for many weeks to months.
Want to Help?
With the recent orthopedics team here, and with the hospital census being very high, Russ Ebersole has had a need to use the Pediatric Benevolence Fund more than usual. This fund specifically helps the most needy of families, those with terminal children who would otherwise never be admitted, and also the families of the national pastors (many of whom live on a “shoestring” due to the poverty of their members). We have seen many children and their family members come to Christ as a result of their being able to be admitted because this fund was available. But as a result of the increased usage, the fund is getting depleted.
If you might be interested in helping out in this area, you can send any gifts to ABWE via the HBB account # 076351-002. This money does not go to the Ebersoles, but is used directly to help these pediatric patients. Thank you in advance for whatever you can do.
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