About twenty years ago when I was a PAACS surgeon at Bongolo Hospital, I saw a 13-year-old boy from the Republic of Congo. His mother was a widow and she and the boy had walked more than 100 miles from their village in the Congo to get to our hospital. The boy had developed visible tumors in his neck, under his arms, and in his groin. On ultrasound we saw tumors in both organs. We biopsied one of the more accessible tumors and sent it to a pathologist in the U.S. with a visitor.
Two weeks later the diagnosis came back that he had non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and the mother and her boy were still in the area. We explained to the boy’s mother that without aggressive chemotherapy, her son had no chance of surviving a few more months. We had no access to chemotherapy at our hospital, and we sadly explained to his mother that the only place in the country that could treat him was in the capital city, 350 miles to the north.
When I suggested that I could perhaps pay for their travel, the mother shook her head emphatically and said, “We’re not in this country legally and I don’t know anyone in the capital city. I’ll just take the boy home.”
In that moment, the Lord whispered to me to pray for the boy’s healing, so I said to the mother, “Since you’ve been here at our hospital, have you heard the chaplains talk about Jesus?” She nodded.
“Did they tell you that Jesus healed the sick with a touch or a word, because he is the Son of God? Did you hear him say that Jesus died for your sins, and that if you and your son put your faith and trust in Him today, He will forgive all your sins and adopt you into His own family?” Again she nodded. “Have you decided to follow Jesus?” I asked. At that, she looked down and shook her head. I hesitated, but the Lord was telling me to pray. I asked, “May I pray to Jesus for your son to be healed?” She looked up in surprise and nodded, so I laid both hands on the boy’s shoulders and said, “Lord Jesus, we cannot help this boy, but You can. Please strengthen this woman’s faith and heal her son!"
When I opened my eyes, the tumors were still there, but I felt an assurance that God was going to heal the boy. So I said to his mother, “Listen, I believe God is going to heal your son, but he’s going to do it through your prayers, not mine! I want you to take him back to your home, and every morning, I want you to pray to Jesus as I have prayed for your son’s healing. Will you do that?” Tears of hope were streaming down her face, and all she could do was nod.
My resident made an appointment for her to return with her son to our surgery clinic in two months, and she promised to return with him. Two months went by, and the woman and her son missed their appointment. Three months passed, then four, five, ten months.
I lost count and wondered what had happened. Had she kept her promise and prayed in faith, believing in Jesus? Or had she gone back to the Nganga for more witchcraft? Had the boy died?
One day after making rounds with our residents I went to our clinic to start seeing patients. There were at least 30 people sitting in the waiting area. As I inserted my key in the door a woman came behind me and said, “Doctor, I need to see you.” Without looking at her I said, “You have to wait your turn, ma’am,” and began to enter the clinic with my back to her. She said again, “Doctor, wait, please, I’m here with my son!” Now thoroughly irritated I turned to her to scold her when I recognized her. It was the Congolese woman, and there, standing next to her was a good-looking teenager who was now taller than his mother. That’s when she said, “Doctor, it’s my son! Jesus healed him!”
Once I recovered, I invited them in, all the while staring at the boy and blinking back tears. When I examined him, there was not a trace of the enlarged lymph nodes he had come with almost a year earlier in his neck, under his arms, in his groin. Nor was there any enlargement of his liver or his spleen. An ultrasound of his abdomen showed no tumors in his liver or spleen. There was no longer even a trace of the deadly disease he came with and that Jesus wiped away.
Before starting our clinic that day, I made sure all my residents saw the boy and heard the story of his healing. A widow’s simple faith had brought healing to her son and blessing to her family and her village.
It is not just the power of surgery we are teaching our PAACS residents, but also the power of Jesus to transform people’s hearts and bring healing to their bodies through faith.
Dr. David Thompson
PAACS Founder
