Sierra Madre, Mexico – The Tarahumara people are an indigenous tribe of Mexico, living in the furthest corners of the Sierra Madre mountains. Dr. Michael Berkeley and his wife serve as medical missionaries at a hospital that ministers to this isolated group of people.
One day, 19-year-old Corpus, a Tarahumara woman, came to the mission hospital seeking surgical care for her clubfoot deformities. Tarahumara women are known for their brilliantly colored dresses, which are usually hemmed at mid-calf length, but Corpus’ dress was floor length in order to hide her deformed feet.
Dr. Berkeley told Corpus that his team could fix her feet, but he warned her that it would be a long process involving multiple painful surgeries. “She didn’t hesitate, and we did the first of four surgeries,” says Dr. Berkeley, using surgical sutures donated to the mission hospital by MAP International.
Over the next 6 months, Corpus was often hospitalized while the medical team slowly cranked the screws on the device that would gradually correct her deformities, millimeter by millimeter. “This was a painful process, but she patiently endured and never once complained of pain,” Dr. Berkeley marveled.
“But Corpus’ feet weren’t the only thing being healed,” says Dr. Berkeley. “For months she was lovingly cared for by the hospital staff who told her about Jesus, and about a God who cared for her.” Traditionally, Tarahumaras believe in a creator god that is distant and capricious and is best to be avoided. “But we told her about a different God who loved her and wanted the best for her, and about a Savior who died for her.”
Corpus decided to accept Jesus as her Savior, “and she now has a healed heart as well as healed feet,” rejoices Dr. Berkeley.
Once Corpus’ surgeries were completed, she felt like a new woman, and “joyfully got to work raising the hem of her dress,” Dr. Berkeley wrote. Thanks to the high-quality surgical sutures donated by MAP, Corpus received not only physical healing through access to medical care, but she also received eternal spiritual healing through access to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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