A missionary doctor who worked... - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness: he encircled him, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Deuteronomy 32:10.

A missionary doctor who worked among the Navajo Indians in the desert of Arizona had the following experience many years ago:

On one of his journeys he approached scrubland that stood out against the desert and was visible from a long distance. The nearer he came, the more clearly he heard terrible screaming. Assuming that an animal was caught in a trap, he left his vehicle, took his rifle and worked his way through the bushes.

He had almost reached the far side of the scrubland when he found to his surprise not an animal but an Indian woman lying helpless on the ground.

The doctor realised that she could not move and was suffering unspeakable torture. After examining her he established that there was hardly any hope for her: gangrene had already set in. He gave her a morphine injection to ease her pain, covered her in a blanket, carried her carefully to his car and brought her to the mission hospital. During the journey he tried to find out from the woman how she had got to such a lonely area. She had been seriously ill, and the witch doctor had been unable to "drive the devil out of her". He had simply turned her out and left her to her fate.

She had lain there for four days, paralysed, without food or drink, in the heat of the sun in the daytime and bitter cold at night, for the region was over 6,000 feet above sea level.

(to be concluded tomorrow)

Today's reading: Jeremiah 31:27-40 · Romans 5:17-21