A Hernia the Size of a Baseball!

8-year-old Rea loves playing and running with his friends. But that sometimes aggravated his hernia. There were times when he told us it became very swollen.

“When the hernia got bigger, it would be as big as a baseball,” says Rea. “It often got bigger when I was tired from running and playing with my friends.”

Rea said he was also teased because of the hernia. “I remember other kids made fun of me. They mocked me and said, ‘Rea, let us see it.’”

Rea’s parents knew that their son’s problem was getting worse. “I remember one day when we were eating, I saw him unable to finish his meal,” says Rea’s father, Lunas. “He said to me, ‘Dad, I can’t eat anymore. My stomach is hurting. It hurts so much.’”

“I remember one day Rea got a fever and he was vomiting. We took him to the hospital,” says Rea’s mother, Fransiska.

Rea comes from a poor family in Indonesia so they couldn’t afford surgery. They contacted Operation Blessing thanks to a CBN afterschool program he was attending. We then arranged for Rea to receive free surgery to repair the hernia.

“I was happy to know that I would receive free surgery because I knew that my hernia would be gone soon,” says Rea.

“I was so grateful because God opened the way for us through Operation Blessing,” says Fransiska.

The surgery was a success and now Rea can run and play with his friends without worry.

“Now I can play without feeling any pain,” says Rea. "Thank you to all the people who made this surgery possible for me! Thank you and God bless you.”