Outcasts No More

Men, women, and children born with a cleft lip in South Sudan often face a lifetime of hopelessness. So often, people falsely believe the facial deformity is the result of a curse. Children are abused, prevented from going to school, and made to feel like outcasts. Many young women never marry.

A cleft lip can be repaired through a surgical procedure that often takes less than two hours, but people who live in rural villages lack access to medical care and have no idea the “curse” can be lifted.

Samaritan’s Purse helped change the lives of 90 cleft lip patients in November by bringing a team of American surgeons to Juba Teaching Hospital in South Sudan to perform these life-changing operations.

Samaritan’s Purse transported men, women, and children of all ages from across South Sudan to the capital city of Juba so they could receive cleft lip repair surgery. Like many others, this patient and his caretaker had never flown in an airplane before.

The medical team prayed over every patient before his or her surgery.

Dr. Thomas Boeve is an ear, nose, and throat surgeon from Beloit, Wisconsin. He has been part of the cleft lip repair program since it began in 2011.

Dr. Cindy Gregg is a facial plastics surgeon from Cary, North Carolina, who joined the Samaritan’s Purse medical team for the first time in 2013. She hopes to return for many more years to come.

Dr. Jim Wade is an ear, nose, and throat surgeon who recently retired from his practice in Abingdon, Virginia. He helped Samaritan’s Purse start the cleft lip repair program in 2011 and has volunteered with the team in South Sudan every year since then.

During the cleft lip repair program, Samaritan’s Purse flew 41 flights in six days, which covered nearly 10,000 miles.