A Christian hospital in Togo shares a critical need.

Togo (MNN)–While aid to Togo remains frozen due to human rights issues, there are some agencies making great strides.

Association of Baptists for World Evangelism’s Sharon Rahilly is a nursing educator in their Togo hospital.

She joins a team that is training Togolese to work as nurses in the ABWE mission hospital. They just finished training their second class, and are looking into starting a third program in 2005.

However, Rahilly says they need a surgeon, and the need has reached a critical stage. “We have talked about everything from having to close the hospital, if we do not have a surgeon, to curtailing activities, perhaps giving forced time off to the hospital employees. So, it is a critical need for January. And, actually, we have not career surgeon for Togo on the horizon.”

So far, the hospital’s need has been met by short-term missions trips, where surgeons are on the field for one or two months.

Since theirs is the third busiest hospital in the country, with 39 beds, their need for a permanent surgeon is significant. Even as they concentrate on the physical healing aspects, Rahilly says their number one goal is sharing the Gospel.

Patients are exposed to the hope of Christ numerous times during the course of a stay. This approach has led to numerous church plants in around the city where the hospital is located. “Most of those have been started because of patients who have been to the hospital, accepted Christ, go back to their villages where there is no Gospel witness, start either a Bible study, or connect with a pastor who will then start a Bible study in that village, and it develops into a church.”