Doctor Has Teeth Pulled for the Sake of His Ministry

Francis Chan, Crazy Love (David C. Cook, 2008), pp. 148-149

"A medical doctor who utilized his skills in Ethiopia for more than 60 years, Nathan Barlow dedicated his life to helping people with mossy foot. Mossy foot is a debilitating condition [that] causes swelling and ulcers in the feet and lower legs. The subsequent deformity and secondary infections makes people with mossy foot social outcasts equivalent to lepers.

I met Nathan shortly before he died. His daughter attended my church and brought him to her home from Ethiopia when his health started to fail. After only a few weeks, he couldn't handle being in the States. The people he loved were still in Ethiopia, so his daughter flew him back home so he could spend his last days there.

Once, Nathan got a toothache and had to fly away from the mission field to get medical attention. Nathan told the dentist he didn't ever want to leave the mission field for the sake of his teeth again, so he had the dentist pull out all of his teeth and give him false ones.

This amazing man was the first to help these outcasts, and he spent his life doing it. Yet no one really knew about him. It surprised me that such a man of God would faithfully serve for so many years, despite minimal recognition."

More about Nathan Barlow at: http://www.mossyfoot.com/index.html#/nathan-barlow/