"I was a pastor in a church when I developed mossy foot disease. As my feet swelled and large, bumpy growths appeared on my toes, I began to experience discrimination from the church elders. They no longer wanted to eat with me or wash their feet in the bucket in which I washed my feet. I was insulted and humiliated by my friends and family. People who knew me did not want to walk on the road where I walked. When I realized that I was being cast out, I began to consider a decision that I never thought I would make. I wanted to stop serving God.
Before I developed mossy foot disease, I was a well-known farmer. All the time I farmed I never wore shoes. None of my parents, brothers, or sisters before me had mossy foot disease. It all started with me. I didn’t know what caused it. My feet were so big that they wouldn’t fit into the largest shoes sold in town.
For eight long years I went to many places people suggested seeking treatment from clinics and cultural doctors. None of the places were able to help me.
One of my daughters got married. Her husband asked if anyone in her family was a mossy foot patient. Fearing that he would send her away, she told him that no one in her family had mossy foot. After her husband’s question, my daughter came to my home and took me to a new mossy foot clinic that had just opened in Bale town.
At the clinic things happened that made me smile. They gave me soap, bleach, and Whitefield ointment. As I faithfully followed instructions, came regularly to the clinic, and wore shoes, the size of my feet slowly improved. Soon I was able to wear size 46 shoes. Month after month the bad smell and growths on my feet got less and less. Two years after I started attending the Mossy Foot Project Clinic, I was able to fit into a size 41 shoe, then size 40 and, finally, I was able to wear normal shoes sold in the market.
I was highly motivated to start a business but did not have the funds to do so, so I asked a neighbor to loan me the money. He leant me money, but at a high rate of interest. When I did not earn enough to pay him, he took my only milk cow, which I had raised for hard times.
When I heard that the Mossy Foot Project gave interest free self-help loans to their patients, I decided to ask a clinic worker. After hearing my story, and because I volunteered for Mossy Foot, they decided to lend me 1000 birr (about $58.00) without interest. They told me to return 10% of the loan every month. This made it possible for me to buy food and clothes for myself and my children. Now in place of the milk cow taken by the other man, I have a milk cow and many sheep and goats.
Other people are surprised by how my life has changed and ask me what my secret is. I tell them that it was God and the Mossy Foot Project. When I encounter people with mossy foot disease, I take them to the Mossy Foot Clinic. I am a changed man both physically and spiritually. My neighbors respect me and I am again serving at my church as a respected pastor.”
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