Bringing God's Word to the Hurting
Nurses and doctors gather for chapel early one Wednesday morning before they start their day in the ward treating ailing patients at Nkhoma Hospital in Malawi. Sunshine pierces through the window slats, illuminating the pulpit engraved with the phrase “a happy heart is like good medicine” in the local Chichewa language.
Nurses enter the chapel one Wednesday morning at Nkhoma Hospital in Malawi.
In this bright scene, one individual stands out. He doesn’t don a white coat or hang a stethoscope around his neck. He wears a suit and tie with a Bible held in his hand.
As the head chaplain at Nkhoma, Reverend Gamaliel embodies a unique zeal to comfort and encourage patients daily. Though once a seminary student and pastor, Gamaliel is now found bedside with nervous patients, praying with them before surgery. Or, he may be in the paediatric ward, lifting children’s spirits with his humour and comforting worried mothers with a hug. But, on Wednesdays, he delivers a message of hope to the hospital staff from the Word of God.
“One day,” Gamaliel proclaimed on that sunlit morning, “there will be no more infections or injections, no more clinics or orthopaedics. Instead, we will forever sing ‘holy, holy, holy.’”
After serving in the local church for years, Gamaliel feels called to preach to the sick at Nkhoma Hospital.
Equipped to Share the Love of Christ
Like skilled doctors and functioning equipment, the chaplaincy programme is integral to Nkhoma Hospital and to the nearly 50 mission hospitals Samaritan’s Purse collaborates with globally. The programme has grown in recent years to support over 150 chaplains with ministry resources and training designed to enhance their service.
Through this programme, chaplains are provided audio and visual equipment, practical ministry content, and theological training and resources to aid their outreach to patients. While dozens of doctors at the hospital work to heal the physical ailments of patients, Gamaliel and his two associate chaplains—Frank and Janet—strive to address the spiritual wounds many patients carry.
“I love to be near—close to the patient—just to share the love of Christ,” Gamaliel remarked.
Frank prays over the staff and patients before the clinic opens at Nkhoma Hospital.
After Frank's prayer, Janet shares the Gospel with the patients.
Gamaliel stands bedside with Jephither, one of 44 Malawians to receive surgery from Samaritan's Purse doctors, before he enters the operating room.
Beyond the gates of Nkhoma, the chaplains conduct home visits to palliative care patients in the surrounding countryside. Twice a week, a chaplain accompanies a medical professional to tend to former patients now back in their homes. While the physician checks their health, the chaplain provides spiritual support with wisdom from Scripture.
Though these people in Malawi’s remote areas are often in pain and suffer from incurable diseases, Gamaliel sees it as an opportunity to bring life through Jesus Christ. “This programme gives us an opportunity to reach out and share the Gospel, and—who knows—maybe God will take them soon, so we don’t want to miss that opportunity for their soul to be saved,” he said.
Ready with the Word of God
Earlier this year, a team of surgeons from Samaritan’s Purse spent two weeks at Nkhoma Hospital, performing orthopaedic surgeries that transformed the lives of 44 Malawians. In conjunction with the medical support, Samaritan’s Purse provided numerous Bibles printed in Chichewa, which Gamaliel and his team distributed to patients and their families.
Drs. Hellwarth and McCluskey have served with Samaritan's Purse for decades, sharing the Gospel as they heal people through orthopaedic surgery.
“The chaplains are often more important than us,” said Dr. McCluskey, an orthopaedic surgeon for Samaritan’s Purse. The doctor of nearly 40 years visited Nkhoma in 2011 where he saw only one overwhelmed chaplain. When he returned this year, he was glad to see three chaplains serving God with fervour.
“It’s really a full-circle moment. The hospital has improved, but the chaplain programme has also been boosted,” Dr. McCluskey said.
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Mercy was one of many recipients of a Chichewa Bible. A mother whose disabled 5-year-old underwent surgery by our team, Mercy expressed her gratitude: “My husband and I attend church every Sunday, but now we can study the Bible at home in our own language.” For Mercy and others, this simple gift represents a breath of renewed hope—much like the surgery her son received.
Beyond life-changing surgery for her son, Mercy was overjoyed to receive a Bible in her native Chichewa language.
Overjoyed to give her this gift, Gamaliel can’t help but praise God.
“I give all the glory to God for calling me to serve in His vineyard,” he said. “Of course, my first flock was in the churches, but now I have a wider audience: people coming from different denominations, Muslims, and those people who don’t even go to church.”
Another patient, Ireen, had been away from the church for years after her husband left her. The 24-year-old mother was ostracised by her community after he left, and she felt an unworthiness in her own heart, too. After she broke her elbow scaling a mountainside for firewood, Ireen thought all was lost. That was until chaplains gifted her a Bible after her successful surgery by the Samaritan’s Purse team.
Janet, right, shares truth from Scripture following the surgery on Ireen’s elbow.
She flipped to Psalm 63, where Gamaliel read the words aloud:
“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
My lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live” (Psalm 63:1, 4; ESV).
“The words uplift my life,” Ireen said. She vowed to return to church that coming Sunday.
Pray for strength, wisdom, and endurance for all our chaplains faithfully serving the sick and poor in Jesus’ Name. Pray that the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed at our mission hospital partners around the world.
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PASTOR MARK SUKULAO was so sick that he wondered if he would ever leave the hospital and return home to his wife and children as he persevered through five painful surgeries in six months. Once restored to health, he was inspired by the hospital chaplain who visited him and encouraged him through prayer. “I felt the love and care,” he said. Today, Pastor Sukulao leads the chaplaincy programme at Karanda Mission Hospital in Zimbabwe. “Chaplains should always come with the heart of God. We point patients to Christ in the midst of their pain,” he said. Our Hospital Evangelism Programme is training chaplains worldwide as they serve hurting people in Jesus’ Name. Your gift will help us equip chaplains like Pastor Sukulao to “comfort those who are in any trouble” (2 Corinthians 1:4).
