"He had been shot through his jaw with an AK-47”

There were so many stories from my time in Ethiopia of just trying to figure it out, just trying to do the best you can for folks. I had to become an amateur urologist, plastic surgeon, neurosurgeon, basically a jack of all specialties.

here were so many stories from my time in Ethiopia of just trying to figure it out, just trying to do the best you can for folks. I had to become an amateur urologist, plastic surgeon, neurosurgeon, basically a jack of all trades. The Lord graciously healed some of these folks despite our best attempts.

Once, an elderly farmer from far in the south arrived at our hospital. While dealing with bandits, he had been shot through his jaw with an AK-47. That's a big, high-velocity bullet and it just completely pulverized half of his lower jaw – there was a huge hole opening up into his mouth. Somehow he made his way to our hospital and we were all scratching our heads trying to figure out what we could possibly do. On top of all that the wound was badly infected.

He ended up staying with us for a very long time. We started by stabilizing the jaw with some pins and external frames and used antibiotics and wound care to get the infection under control. He was able to get nutrition using a long straw and was able to put on weight. Eventually we took him to the operating room for reconstruction. We used skin and muscle from his chest to fill up the hole in his mouth. To reconstruct his jaw I used some bone from his pelvis packed around a metal bar to substitute for his jaw bone. Amazingly, he healed! We got him to where he could eat and got him out of the hospital.

That was a crazy story I wasn’t sure would have a very happy ending, but God had other plans.