Hamlin Fistula Hospital STS

Hamlin Fistula hospital treats women with childbirth injuries and other related complications. Many tribal communities in Ethiopia practice forced marriages and girls are usually given to marriage at very tender ages.

When young married girls conceive after being married, they at times get injuries at childbirth and develop Fistula conditions and they can longer control bodily wastes- urine and feces.

When this happens, the injured girl's in-laws and husband reject her. These girls are considered as cursed, so their husbands leave and remarry. The families go through great shame and the poor women are held responsible for bringing the shame to their families.

Usually, these girls are hidden by their families from the public as those families try to cover the shame. The effects of these on the affected women are great shame, feeling of rejection and dejection. Fistula hospital takes such women from the villages and treats them.

We visited the Hamlin Fistula Hospital. While there we showed the God’s Story (Amharic version) to the patients. At first, the women looked very disturbed as they watched the scene where the Serpent deceives Eve. Later, when we asked the women why the looked disturbed when they saw the serpent, they said it reminded them of their condition as cursed women. As they watched the rest of the video, their faces lightened up and many of them shed tears as they were touched by God’s Word. They realized that Christ took their place, just as the ram died instead of Isaac.

Later we held an STS workshop for the hospital medical and assisting staff. The stories of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38) and the One Leper (Mark 1:40) became the hospital favorites. As the members of the staff practice these stories with the patients, the patients saw the shame in the Martha & Mary story. In the One Leper story, patients identified with the rejection the leper faced. Like the leper, each of them also had gone through rejection by their families and husbands because of their condition.

There was a great change to the women after the stories. The women said they wanted Jesus to touch them as He had touched the leper. The women said they were happy to know that God hasn’t cursed them; that He was providing a way out of their world of misery and shame. They were filled with joy and experienced new life and hope.