The Stories Of Joan Fox

By Carter Keefe

Joan Fox was a volunteer aboard the YWAM Ships Liberty, stationed in Papua New Guinea. She was working in the dental field at the time. These are just some of her stories.

One morning, when Joan and her team arrived on-site to continue helping with the dental ministry, there were far more people than expected—a whole crowd. Out of all the people waiting to be seen, one caught Joan’s eye: a woman with cloth wrapped around her face and a swarm of flies hovering near her. She looked desperate for help.

Once Joan brought her in, she went to remove the bandages, but the woman stopped her, clearly afraid. Joan reassured her that it was okay and comforted her. Eventually, the woman removed the cloth so she could be examined.

What Joan saw was heartbreaking. Oral cancer had overtaken the woman’s lower lip, leaving it swollen and almost unusable. The woman expressed how embarrassed she was about her appearance. She explained that she’d tried to hide it with bandages, but the pain had become too overwhelming to ignore.

The cancer was too advanced for Joan to treat, especially with the limited equipment she had on hand.

“It’s not easy to get referrals…” Joan said. “But there are people who visit from the Philippines, and some surgeons do come which can help to get them.”

Thankfully, by the grace of God, the woman was accepted into a hospital in the city of Madang, where she could be treated.

Before she was sent off, Joan spoke life over her.

“We just prayed over her, shared Jesus with her,” Joan said. “We reminded her that she was beautiful, that she was loved, and that she was made just the way God intended.”

Joan gently washed her face, cleaned the area, wrapped it in fresh bandages to prevent further infection, and sent her on her way.

“That beautiful woman went off rejoicing and full of hope,” Joan recalled. “And I just continued to pray that God would provide healing.”

Thanks to Joan’s faithfulness, that woman found hope for the first time in a long while—but the stories don’t end there.

Not long after, another woman arrived with her two-year-old baby and asked if Joan could help her child.

“The baby had been badly burned for over a year, and there was nowhere else to go,” Joan reported.

The mother had walked nearly an entire day with her child just to get there. The burn wound was severe. All Joan could do was irrigate it, apply a bandage, and send out an emergency referral to a hospital.

After caring for the child, Joan asked the mother if she herself needed help.

“She asked me if I could look at something, and I said, ‘Absolutely! That’s what we’re here for,’” Joan said.

She continued,

“Her foot was bad—possibly dangerously infected. I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep it.”

Joan did everything she could: she washed the wound, irrigated it—but then paused.

“Do you know Jesus?” she asked.

The woman said yes.

“Do you know that Jesus washed feet?” Joan asked.

The woman didn’t. So Joan shared that story with her. Then she washed the woman’s feet, prayed over her and her child, and sent them to the hospital.

“We were there to do teeth…” Joan said, “but those people needed care. So after we helped, they were able to be sent on and receive the care they truly needed.”

These stories show how God can use people to bring hope and the love of Jesus—even in the hardest situations, even situations you may not have expected to be put in.

“It became a time of hope,” Joan said. “And we were just in awe that there was an appointed time that God had us there.”