The Grahams were encouraged by all that God is doing through Kenya's Tenwek Hospital and its new cardiothoracic center built in partnership with Samaritan's Purse.
Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham and his youngest son, Samaritan’s Purse COO Edward Graham, gathered March 4 with faculty and staff of Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya, north of Nairobi. The group toured Tenwek’s new state-of-the-art cardiothoracic surgical center, which, in partnership with Samaritan’s Purse, was completed Oct. 24 of last year. The need for a such a facility was great among sub-Saharan African countries, as more than 800 heart patients were on a waiting list in advance of opening day.
The new cardiothoracic center at Tenwek has the capacity to care for 2,000 heart patients per year.
During their time at the hospital, the Grahams heard stories of what God has done at Tenwek and also what He’s been doing in the lives of patients and their loved ones since the opening of the new facility.
“When I come to Tenwek, I think, ‘Look what God has done,” Franklin Graham told faculty and staff, recounting the early days of Tenwek, when our World Medical Mission project began funding and providing doctors for the hospital. “I remember when there was just one doctor here by himself, three people to a bed.”
Tenwek was among the first such facilities we helped. Since then, more than 10,000 doctors have served with Samaritan’s Purse at mission hospitals around the world.
Stories of God’s Goodness
As the Grahams toured the new center together, they had the opportunity to see how God has worked mightily through faithful medical professionals, positioning Tenwek as one of the most advanced hospitals on the continent.
Edward Graham talks with Dr. Russ White, chief of surgery at Tenwek, and Scott Hughett, director of World Medical Mission.
The cardiothoracic center is a multi-story world class facility with the capacity to handle 2,000 heart cases a year and is the largest dedicated cardiothoracic unit in sub-Saharan Africa.
Franklin and Edward Graham also were able to hear stories of how God is providing for the needs of the hospital and the vast needs around them. As a 361-bed teaching hospital, Tenwek is a force multiplier, training surgeons and physicians to return to and serve their people.
“Samaritan’s Purse is a blessing to Africa, Kenya specifically. I’ve never seen such a magnificent organization, with Christ at its center, and out there to elevate, to see the need, to intervene,” said Dr. Arega Fekadu, the director of Tenwek’s cardiothoracic surgery fellowship. “This facility has been a gift not only to Kenya, not only to Tenwek, but to Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and for 1.2 billion people.
“Today we are training people from Cameroon, Malawi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, and other African countries. Tenwek is now branching into the rest of Africa.”
Franklin Graham prays over one of the center’s operating rooms.
Dr. Fekadu shared recent stories from heart surgery patients who were so overwhelmed by the compassionate work at the center, it gave them a new vision for their lives.
“Two of the patients just last week said, ‘When I’m back to health, I’m going to pursue my school and I want to be working here,’” Dr. Fekadu shared. “We said, ‘Absolutely. Go do your school, when you come for follow-up, we’ll keep engaged.’
“Patients look around and they’ve never seen such things. These patients are in a dire situation. They can’t go to school. They can’t play. So being here brings hope. You see they are embracing the future back again. Their life is given back to them. Their hope is restored, their future is bright. Then some of them say, ‘I want to be one of the workers.'”
A Partnership Formed by God
World Medical Mission, a medical arm of Samaritan’s Purse, has been sending doctors to Tenwek for decades. In 1981, Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham raised funds for a major building project at Tenwek. Construction on the Johana Ng’etich Medical Center started in 1981, and the new ward opened four years later.
Edward Graham tours the cardiothoracic center with Melvin Graham, who serves on the board of directors at Samaritan’s Purse.
In 2004, Samaritan’s Purse also funded the construction of an operating theater, which has five operating rooms and other facilities. We also helped rebuild a wing there claimed by fire in 2018.
“This is a place that has special meaning to my father,” said Edward Graham, who also celebrated the opening of the cardiothoracic surgical center in person last fall. “It’s one of the first hospitals he ever visited back in the early eighties.
“We’ve always loved this hospital. This is the premier hospital in all of Africa. We are in awe of what God has done…This is God’s hospital. And the doctors here use medicine as a magnet for the Gospel.”
Edward Graham hears from faculty and staff as they describe what God has done through Tenwek and the new cardiothoracic center.
