A mother who lived in fear her daughter’s fast-growing tumor would suffocate her is rejoicing after a surgical charity gave her daughter life-saving surgery.  Without a single maxillofacial surgeon in her home country of Sierra Leone, Yei had no one who could treat her daughter.  While she was pregnant, Yei had no ultrasound, and no reason to think her baby would be born anything but healthy. When she first saw the lump on her baby’s face and neck at birth, she felt devastated. 

After 56 years with a cleft lip, it took just a two-hour surgery to change Samba’s life and unleash his God-given potential.   Samba, a widower with four children, worked as a cattle farmer in rural Senegal, where he faced discrimination due to his lifelong condition.  He had grown used to his cleft lip drawing unwanted attention. Physical attacks were so commonplace that Samba couldn’t guess how many times they had happened. 

For 25-year-old Diarra, stepping into the operating room of the Africa Mercy® was a moment more than a decade in the making. She had been looking for healing for a facial tumor for almost half her life.  “I feel so good inside my heart,” she exclaimed about her opportunity for surgery. “I have been to many different doctors, but they couldn't heal it.”  She couldn’t recall when the tumor began to grow. All she remembers is being a teenager and experiencing a toothache that led to a small growth. From there, “it just kept getting bigger.” Diarra’s parents took her to several hospitals. Each visit was a step in an uphill battle, made harder by their meager earnings as small-scale farmers. Medical costs loomed large, forcing them to choose between caring for their other children or seeking healing for their daughter. Eventually, they stopped looking.