For the Himalayan people, the nearest hospital is not an ambulance ride away. It can mean a trek of several days and then twelve hours in a car on rough mountain roads. So when an accident crushes a hand or a leg in one of these remote villages, amputation is often the only option, and the person lives with the loss for the rest of their life.
Aaron and Sidney Barr, International Mission Board workers who share the gospel among Himalayan peoples, carry a particular burden for people with disabilities. With gifts from Southern Baptists who support healthcare projects, they began working with a licensed local prosthetist. Every time they and local believers sit down with someone who needs a new limb, they tell them about Jesus, and they explain that the money for the care came from believers who love them.
“Meeting physical needs has really opened doors and given us a way into the community,” Sidney said.
One of those doors belonged to Sanjay. More than ten years ago he lost an arm in a work accident, and the prosthetic he had could not grip or lift anything. When the Barrs offered help, he rode a bus for hours from his small town to be fitted for a new arm, one that would let him play with his kids and make his factory work easier.
The ministry also travels. On a recent trek into the mountains, the leaders of one village asked Aaron and his local partners to help their shepherd, a man who had lost his fingers in an accident years earlier. They sat with him, talked with him, and shared the good news of Jesus.
He believed right away.
The believers were stunned. For five years they had been visiting that village regularly and telling people about Jesus, and in all that time no one had ever believed. So they wanted to be sure. They explained the gospel again in two more languages common in the region, to make certain the shepherd understood what he was saying yes to.
His answer was simple: “If I say I believe, I believe.”
There is something in that sentence worth sitting with. We often think faith has to be complicated, argued for, or earned through years of getting our lives in order first. Here was a man with a damaged hand, living far from almost everything, who heard that God loved him and that Jesus had come for him, and he simply took God at His word. “For with the heart, one believes resulting in righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made resulting in salvation” (Romans 10:10, WEB).
And there is something here for the ones who keep showing up. Five years of treks with no visible fruit is a long time. The Barrs and their partners kept walking those paths anyway, and kept meeting the needs in front of them, and one day the door opened. If you have been praying for someone for years, or quietly serving where nothing seems to change, take heart. Pray for this shepherd as he is discipled, and for his village. If Jesus has met you in a simple moment of trust, you are welcome to share your story.
Adapted from “Prosthetics ministry opens gospel doors in East Asia” by Stella McMillan, International Mission Board (19 March 2026). Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. Original article. Names in the original report were changed for security. Except where otherwise noted, IMB site content is CC BY-NC 4.0 (Legal Permissions).