COMMENTARY: What’s a Missionary to Do? Fixing Lives One Child at a Time

c. 2004 Religion News Service (Dr. Gary Roark is an anesthesiologist and director of clinical services at the Beit Trust CURE Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, a teaching hospital for disabled children. He, his wife, Karina, and two children Erica, 14, and Daniel, 10, were sent to Malawi by CURE International. (http://www.cureinternational.org)) BLANTYRE, Malawi _ Blantyre […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Dr. Gary Roark is an anesthesiologist and director of clinical services at the Beit Trust CURE Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, a teaching hospital for disabled children. He, his wife, Karina, and two children Erica, 14, and Daniel, 10, were sent to Malawi by CURE International. (http://www.cureinternational.org))

BLANTYRE, Malawi _ Blantyre by day: dirty little boys in tattered clothes, some orphaned, some cast out, some looking for an easy Kwacha (Malawian money). Crippled men and women crawling across the street. The blind being led by little children. Limbless bodies struggling with wheelchairs. They walk the streets, sit in alleys, congregate at intersections where big cars with white people stop for red lights.


Blantyre by night: Young ladies, often girls, low cut necklines, thigh-high hems, and spiked heels. Fast money and a deadly game. The African roulette of AIDS.

Malawi is a country where gray heads are scarce and poverty kills its young. Where the “rich” drive fancy cars and live in houses with electricity and running water, leaving the masses to eek out a living in mud huts, haul brown water, dig holes in which to relieve themselves, and light kerosene lamps when there is money to buy fuel. Where those with wealth buy medicines to treat AIDS, malaria and bilharzia, and those without die.

Malawi has a population of close to 11 million people _ a half million of whom are expected to die of AIDS this year. But AIDS will not be on the death certificate. Pneumonia, brain abscess, organ failure and the like will define the cause. There is treatment for AIDS, but only if you define it as such. Sadly, only a meager few will be tested, begin treatment and perhaps spare their children the title of “orphans.”

What is the missionary, the humanitarian, the doctor, the teacher, the nurse, the Peace Corps volunteer, to do in the midst of such suffering?

Income can be had by providing jobs through foreign business ventures. The orphans and “street children” can know something of love from foreign care givers. A handful of prostitutes may leave the streets for an honorable trade. And when pictures of bloated-bellied children and emaciated elderly fill the television screens of Western countries, aid will be distributed for a month, or two, or maybe a year, until the pictures are forgotten and our consciences appeased.

At Beit Trust CURE International Hospital, Malawi, we are seeking to alleviate the suffering of crippled children by offering first-rate, compassionate, orthopedic and anesthetic care to the poorest of the poor. We do this by sharing our knowledge with the doctors indigenous to this county, and by bringing quality medicine and gifted physicians to assist the most disabled and neediest of children. Some will know complete healing of their deformities. Others will know a life improved. All will leave with the label of “outcast” removed from their lives.

It is our sincere hope, however, that every child and family that enters Malawi’s CURE hospital will receive a healing of their spirits as well as their bodies. In telling about God’s gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of his son for the forgiveness of our sins, we can offer a hope that reaches beyond the struggles of this life.


Food for the day, treatment and medicines for the sick, comfort for the dying, homes for the orphans, hope for the prostitute and money to pay the bills are right and good. They are what Jesus meant when he told Simon Peter, “Feed my lambs.”

There are many “lambs” in Malawi, and elsewhere in this world, that need to know the love of God through the care bestowed upon them by his disciples. But if the caring is to have everlasting value, we must also impart the hope of salvation in Jesus.

Yamikani, a 5 year-old boy, is one such “lamb” in Malawi. While playing with friends, Yamikani was bitten by a snake. He was taken to a traditional healer who scraped the bite, and gave him “medicine.” After three days Yamikani’s leg became swollen. It and his mouth turned black. Three days later cracks appeared down the sides of his leg. He was taken to a government hospital. His leg was dressed and he was prescribed antibiotics for three months, but his condition worsened. The medical staff discussed the need to amputate Yamikani’s leg.

Shortly before Yamikani’s leg was to be amputated, one of CURE International’s surgeons, Dr. Jim Harrison, found him in the ward while doing a consulting visit to the regional hospital where Yamikani had been admitted. Yamikani was very pale and sick. Harrison assessed him, decided an amputation need not be done, and had him taken to Malawi’s CURE Hospital. He arrived so weak he could not stand or walk. He was operated on immediately. His leg was put in a cast, his diet improved to include an egg every day, and he was given consistent physiotherapy.

He has returned to CURE 10 times since, for dressings, inspections, debridements and skin grafting. His knee is healing well and he can walk with crutches. We look forward to the day when he will leave them behind.

DEA/JL END ROARK/ROARK

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