By Grayson Hester
Healing need not necessarily be miraculous for it to be received as a miracle.
The Gospel accounts of Jesus healing blind people, those with leprosy, the woman with the issue of blood — to name just a few — are often read by modern Western eyes as supernatural displays of divine power. Removed from our present rational reality it becomes practically obsolete. But perhaps it is not so much how Jesus healed people, but that it happened at all, that constitutes the miracle.
For many in the developed, so-called “first world,” access to high quality medical care is but a phone call away, a service as convenient as ordering a pizza. Both yesterday and today, those living under the thumb of the empire, enfeebled by colonialism and ravaged by poverty— this is not the case. Maladies, from the merely inconvenient to the life-threatening, commonly went untreated, sometimes for years on end, which makes the very fact of being treated at all nothing short of a miracle. It is not that Jesus cured them, really. It’s that Jesus first cared.
Now, centuries after Jesus’ life on earth, one need look no further than Togo, a small nation on Africa’s northwestern coast, to see that the need for care persists. It is people like Afro who stand in need of that very basic miracle of being seen. A native of Ghana — which shares a border with Togo — Afro suffered a life-altering, accident-related leg injury that demanded immediate and compassionate care. The immediacy was respected. The need for compassion, however, was not.
“I went to a big hospital that had great machines for operations and all the necessary tools. I stayed at this hospital for a couple of months, but there was no improvement,” Afro said. “The doctor was tired of me and he sent me back home. And then I decided to leave Ghana for Vogan.” Vogan is a small, rural town about one-and-a-half hours from Togo’s capital city, Lomé. It’s an otherwise nondescript location that, because of the work of one organization, one CBF field personnel, one church and a whole lot of faith, currently stands as a bastion of Christlike compassion.
In this tiny place of barely 1,000 people, the Mission Christian pour le Development Communautaire au Togo (MCDC) — or the Christian Mission for the Community Development of Togo — does its lifesaving work. CBF field personnel Karen Alford works on the front lines, providing primary health care consultancy to the patients at the MCDC clinic and capacity building for the health workers who treat them. She provides not just healing, but hope, to people like Afro.
“He has had a lot of hardship in his life and faced a lot of challenges in Ghana,” Alford said. “He’s feeling hopeful again. He has seen his wound heal, and I think being close to family has been good for him, too.”
In addition to the community he found at the clinic, Afro’s move to Togo has placed him closer to his brother, Hammer, who is a Togolese pastor and the founder of the MCDC. It was upon his urging that Afro make the hours-long journey, no small feat with an injured leg. But this stop became a leap of faith, one that is already bearing substantial fruit — not the least of which is the relationship that has blossomed between him and Alford.
“I am very close to Karen because she was the one I met first at the clinic. She took care of me. We were able to communicate and have become friends,” Afro said. “Sometimes, she even comes to my house and takes me to the clinic.”
Alford shares the same feelings. “I’ve actually seen a lot of change in [Afro]. He used to be incredibly quiet and shy,” she said. “Now I see him engaging with other patients and encouraging them. He’s visiting them on his own time, just to see how they’re doing and raise their spirits.”
And that’s the character of Christlike compassion, the substance of a miracle. It’s not simply about the wound, but about the morale injury behind it. It is not just about repairing a leg but restoring the whole person.
From there, healing creates healing and reunion creates reunion. Had Afro merely been treated, he likely would have remained, in Alford’s words, shy and quiet. But, thanks to her, Hammer and the MCDC, he wasn’t just treated – he was seen. He was cared for, and a whole group of people are reaping the benefits.
“When I came to Hammer’s clinic and saw people’s wounds, I forgot what happened to me. Because some people carry the wound of several years, but now they are feeling better,” Afro said. The “wound of several years” — it’s a term that includes, not just medical concerns, but the spiritual lacerations, the bodily injuries and the emotional abrasions. It’s the harms we harbor and the callouses we carry. It’s whole-body separation that demands nothing less than whole-body healing.
It’s precisely this that the MCDC and other organizations like it around the world, are called to provide, motivated not by profit, but by prophetic witness.
“Karen is a good person, and the spirit of God is leading her,” Afro said. “Even when you come to the clinic without money, she will treat you and after your healing you can pay it back. A man’s life is more important than money.”
As for Afro’s literal next steps? For now, he will remain in this community and focus on his recovery. But from then on – he’s got some good news to share. “God is going to do new things in my life, and I believe that very soon I will be totally recovered. Then, I will go back to Ghana and tell people what God has done for me.”
A miracle, indeed.
