The last time I was at Kapsowar Hospital up in the mountains of Kenya, skilled surgeons were performing life-saving operations in the flickering glow of a headlight that had been stripped off an old Land Rover, rigged to the ceiling, and wired to a 12-volt battery.

That primitive scene came to mind a few days ago when I received a message from Dr. Dick Furman about what God is doing at Kapsowar through Samaritan's Purse and our medical arm, World Medical Mission.

Thirty years ago when I was finishing college, I worked with Dick and his brother Lowell to start World Medical Mission. Lowell went home to the Lord in 2006, but Dick continues to travel worldwide to serve in missionary hospitals like Kapsowar that depend on the doctors, medicines, equipment, and support that we send.

The hospital director told Dr. Furman that if not for Samaritan's Purse, Kapsowar Hospital would have closed years ago. Staff and resources were dwindling. A number of patients were dying for lack of basic medical technology like infant incubators and oxygen concentrators.

Today, the 75-year-old hospital is thriving. Samaritan's Purse is renovating and upgrading the facilities. In April, we sent them a truck-sized shipping container loaded with tons of life-saving supplies. We also help staff the hospital with a rotation of Christian doctors from North America who volunteer for short-term trips with World Medical Mission. The entire hospital is bringing glory to God.

One recent night at Kapsowar, Dr. Furman was called to the operating room to help a Kenyan man who had been shot in the chest with an arrow. Miraculously, the arrowhead had just missed the two largest blood vessels connected to the man's heart. A fraction of an inch either way, and he would have bled to death. Because Dr. Furman specializes in chest surgery, he was able to delicately extract the arrowhead in a 90-minute procedure and save the man's life.

The next morning, Dr. Furman went to share the Gospel with his patient. He told the man how close he had come to dying and asked him if he knew the Lord. "Yes!" the man said, his eyes lighting up. "Jesus saved me twice - once when I first believed in Him, and again last night!"

What mission hospitals may lack in staff and supplies, they make up for in Christian compassion, the power of prayer, and healings that are unmistakably the work of the Great Physician.

"Kapsowar is a different hospital today than it was five years ago," Dr. Furman said, "and it is going to be even greater once the nursing school is completed and the new operating rooms are built - all with the help of Samaritan's Purse donors. But the greatest part of all is that medicine is a wonderful tool for evangelism. The better this hospital is, the larger platform we will have to tell others about Jesus."
In many parts of Africa and other struggling countries, mission hospitals like Kapsowar are the only source of medical care for millions of people. Yet today, they are in trouble. Career missionary doctors are retiring faster than they can be replaced. Troubled nations have a hard time training or keeping their own doctors.

Every year, World Medical Mission sends hundreds of physicians and dentists overseas from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia on short-term assignments to help fill gaps at mission hospitals in over 25 countries. Meanwhile, Samaritan's Purse is helping to renovate or upgrade medical facilities not only at Kapsowar but also at hospitals in Bangladesh, Angola, and Sudan. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we want to help reopen the Centre Medical Evangelique, a great evangelical hospital that was destroyed in a 2002 tribal war.

Our medical warehouse has shipped more than $40 million worth of supplies and equipment to dozens of mission hospitals and clinics. Much of it is donated by U.S. hospitals. When they install state-of-the-art technology, instead of throwing the older items away, they are able to give us equipment that has many years of useful life remaining.

Samaritan's Purse recently received the donation of a million-dollar linear accelerator that we will install in a Christian hospital in India. For most of the 22 million people living in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), this will be the only place they can receive radiation treatment for cancer. Even more important, as they come they will have opportunities to hear and experience the Good News of everlasting life in Jesus Christ.

The next time you hear our politicians talking about a healthcare crisis, remember people around the world who would have absolutely no access to medical treatment if it wasn't for the dedicated service of missionary doctors and the faithful prayers and support of people like you.

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