Meet Costa

Meet my friend Costa.  Some of you who read a lot of our stuff may have already heard his name but I asked him today if I could share more of his story. I meet Costa maybe a year ago – He was confined to his yard, sitting on the dirt, not able to walk.  Back in 2013 his was involved in an accident where he fell of a tractor.  He was thrown from the tractor and broke his leg in the fall.  The injury it self wasn’t too bad and healed in time after the initial visit to the hospital.  Unfortunately though he developed a chronic bone infection, and this developed into Osteoporosis Myelitis. Due to isolation and lack of money the condition remained untreated and due to the pain in his leg he couldn’t walk and hasn’t walked since the accident. He also had the worlds largest scab on his leg that was the congealment of all the gunk that came from the infection and made its way to the surface. I’ve got pictures but I won’t post the here as I want you to keep reading!

Every time I visited him I prayed with him but also I had the sense that we could help in some other practical way. In consultation with multiple doctors we started him on some antibiotic therapy as the first step to help rid him of the problems in his leg. Each week saw steady progress as the wound on the leg decreased in size and he reported the pain in the leg diminishing. In the last 2 weeks he has started walking without the aid of a crutch! This is the first time he has walked in 5 years! Kath has been giving him some physio support and exercises and today he told me he can now make it 200m without any assistance.

Last week as we were sitting with him and enjoying listening to him express his happiness, Kath told the short story of Jesus healing the leporous man in the book of Luke. He smiled at the end and said this story is like my story!

He isn’t completely better and we need to follow up with an X-ray and maybe surgery. If you pray, please pray that one day he would be completely healed – his dream is to be back helping his wife working on their plot of land planting maize. Also, please pray that through this process he sees that God cares about him and he is not forgotten.