At 51 years old, Nambiema Nouhoun lay on a musty cot, staring up at the crumbling gray ceiling of his small hut, waiting for death. The squalor surrounding him attracted flies and the pain radiating from his body caused him to cry out at the slightest movement.
Days earlier, Mr. Nouhoun had been walking after dark and had fallen 30 feet into an uncovered well. The owner of the house—a local Muslim teacher—pulled Mr. of the well, but refused to get him medical care even though his femur was was badly broken.
Unable to move, Nouhoun had no choice but to lie in his bed for seven days. He wavered between desperation and despair. The devoutly Muslim man had been forsaken by his own religious leader and left to die.
But news spreads quickly in a place like Mango, a West African village where chatty women and roaming children in the marketplace offer communication that rivals modern technology. Soon, ABWE missionary Tim Neufeld heard of Mr. Nouhoun’s condition and tracked him down to offer help.
It was immediately evident that local medical care was out of the question. The only hospital in this area of Togo was in such disrepair it had been nicknamed “the hospital of death.” In fact, current conditions remain so appalling that the hospital’s only trained surgeon recently packed up and left town.
Horror stories circulate among the missionaries of the “care” provided there; tales of young women who are given hysterectomies without their knowledge, or patients with broken bones set so poorly they never walk properly again. With no real doctors or pharmacy, people are forced to concoct their own “medications,” often severely damaging their kidneys and liver. Recently, missionaries heard of a baby who was somehow set on fire by his sibling. When the parents took the child to the current hospital, they were told there were no doctors working since it was a weekend. The nurse gave them some ointment and sent them home. Not surprisingly, the infant died soon after.
Tim knew that Mr. Nouhoun would not find the expertise needed to treat his complex injury at “the hospital of death.” After enduring nine excruciating hours on bone-jarring, pothole-covered roads, Mr. Nouhoun arrived at ABWE’s mission hospital in Tsiko, Togo, an oasis of modern medicine in the midst of tribal healers and third-world poverty.
A hospital of Hope.
Established 25 years ago by ABWE, the Karolyn Kempton Memorial Hospital remains a premier medical facility in the West African country of Togo. The hospital also serves as a launching pad for some of ABWE’s most successful ministries.
Each year more than 2,000 people come to Christ as a direct result of the hospital’s ministries. These new believers, nurtured by ABWE’s mission team, return to their villages and cultivate church plants in communities far beyond Tsiko (pronounced cheek-o). To date, 40 churches can be traced directly to the Karolyn Kempton Hospital, though estimates reach upwards of 80 with daughter-churches and other missions’ movements.
Additionally, 16 Christian schools have been established in the area to train and encourage the next generation of believers, many of whose parents were saved through hospitalrelated ministries. Community health initiatives reach into un-evangelized communities, sharing practical knowledge on sanitation and disease prevention while opening the door for the gospel. Elsewhere, adult believers are encouraged through literacy training programs to learn to read their Bible and deepen their faith. The hospital has one of the only Christian bookstores in the country, translating and printing many Christian resource materials on-site.
Through the Karolyn Kempton Memorial Hospital and its associated ministries, ABWE has earned a far-reaching reputation of compassion and commitment to the Togolese people. So much so, that Muslim officials from Mr. Nouhoun’s village of Mango recently asked the unabashedly Christian organization to build a hospital in the north.
ABWE agreed.
Located in the 10/40 Window, the new hospital will reach beyond Togo into surrounding West African countries, providing access to quality medical care and countless opportunities to show Christ’s love in a Muslim stronghold.
For someone like Latifa Nassakou, the promise of healthcare and the Christians providing it, already represents a better life in Mango. Eight-year-old Latifa suffers from debilitating pain, so when ABWE missionaries heard of her plight, they offered to help. Alain Niles and his wife, Katherine, had moved to Mango with a team of seven other church-planters to establish connections in the community and prepare for the coming hospital. Much to her father’s delight, Alain helped Latifa get X-rays and is connecting the family with an orthopedic surgeon. “Many people have offered to help in the past, but you are the first people who really have helped,” Latifa’s father told the missionaries.
This love is new to the people of Mango. But it is not lost on them.
Mr. Nouhoun, who now walks with a slight limp, met with Tim Neufeld recently in the same small hut that had once held him prisoner. He talked of finding a job, and about a man called Jesus.
“These people at ABWE treated me so kindly,” Nouhoun said through a local interpreter. “I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me. Yet, they received me as a friend. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
The father of two looked at Neufeld with excitement shining in his eyes. “I have seen that this Jesus is a man of truth. And you who follow him also try to live in that truth. If it is okay, I would like to know him better. Perhaps through you, I can.”
Encounters like these can only be multiplied when the people of Mango have direct access to the Wendell Kempton Medical and Ministry Center, aptly named in honor of the organization’s late president. Once complete, the new hospital has the potential to impact many people with the gospel.
Through this unprecedented opportunity, ABWE will bring the message of hope to a people oppressed by Islam and poverty. Like Mr. Nouhoun, many will be hearing this amazing news for the very first time... and it will change their lives forever.
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