“I have gained a sister.”
“Please, doctor, do what you can,” was the cry of this 31-year-old woman, eyes full of tears and an incision leaking abdominal fluid.
22 weeks into her pregnancy, the woman had delivered prematurely, but the placenta wouldn’t budge. Surgeons at another hospital had taken her to the operating room for a hysterectomy with 13 units of blood in tow. Over the next 2 weeks, she was taken back to the operating room twice for complications. Still, she was leaking fluid from her wound.
“With a referral letter to the nearby teaching hospital in hand, she instead turned the opposite direction and headed to our hospital,” grant recipient Dr. Heidi Haun tells us. “At first, I told her to go the the big hospital where they have teams of doctors to help her.” Dr. Haun was concerned about the difficulty of the case being too much for their smaller facility.
“If you don’t help, I would rather go home and die,” the woman responded. So, Dr. Haun got to work.
The Impact of Whole-Person Care
Overnight, the nurses treated the woman while Dr. Haun prayed at home for wisdom and courage to do what was right for her patient. The next day Dr. Haun took her to the OR, found the holes in the small bowel, repaired them, and gave her an ostomy. “Her hospital stay was very long. Her wound broke down again and again and is still in the process of healing. I prayed with her multiple times throughout her hospitalization,” Dr. Haun says.
When it came time for the woman to be discharged, Dr. Haun sat down with her and her caretaker and shared the good news of Jesus Christ. “I shared with her that it was because of Jesus that I was here at this hospital able to serve her. I explained that God loved her and made a way for her sins to be forgiven and her relationship with God to be restored,” she says.
As the woman listened, Dr. Haun tells us, the smile on her face revealed the light that had entered her heart. While her husband was not Christian, she openly told him that she had decided to follow Jesus. At the time this story was shared with us, this woman still had a wound and an ostomy.
“I will have more opportunities to serve her and encourage her in Jesus,” Dr. Haun says. “I thank God for her life and I thank God for giving me the courage to take on a very difficult case. I knew resolution would not come quickly, but in the process, I have gained a sister. Praise the Lord.”
Advancing the Gospel through Healthcare Missions
MedSend has awarded nearly 700 grants to healthcare workers like Dr. Haun in over 96 countries around the world, impacting approximately 5 million men, women, and children suffering in difficult, low-resource communities. Will you join us in extending God’s love through compassionate healthcare?
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