He Trusted God but Feared Death: The Story of a Missionary Doctor Who Fought Ebola

The morning that would change everything for the Stafford family began as a routine hospital staff meeting.

On May 15, 2026, the day Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the DRC’s Ministry of Health confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, Nyankunde Hospital gathered its team to plan its response. The next day, Dr. Peter Stafford started experiencing symptoms. (source)

Peter, 39, a board-certified general surgeon specializing in burn treatment, had unknowingly operated on a patient with Ebola before the outbreak was even detected. What doctors thought was a gallbladder infection turned out to be the Bundibugyo ebolavirus — a strain less fatal than some others, but still carrying a mortality rate of roughly 25 percent. (source)

A Family Called to Serve

Peter and his wife, Rebekah, 38, an obstetrician-gynecologist, had served at Nyankunde Hospital with the Christian mission agency Serge since 2023. The evangelical hospital, affiliated with the Christian Health Service Corps, serves a population of about 13,500 residents in the remote Ituri Province with a staff of roughly 100 people. (source)

Like many mission hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa, Nyankunde operates with constant shortages — gloves, masks, medications for HIV and TB that can go unstocked for months, and unreliable access to clean water and electricity. Yet the Staffords had no plans to leave. They saw their work as a privilege, serving people who had endured much violence and uncertainty over the years. (source)

The Fear That Did Not Cancel Faith

When Peter’s symptoms began — fever, fatigue, the telltale signs of Ebola — his condition declined rapidly. The morning he was evacuated, he could not stand on his own. A Congolese doctor in full protective equipment placed his hand on Peter to steady him. Peter told him he hoped they would see each other again. (source)

On May 19, Peter was flown to Berlin’s Charité University Hospital, one of Europe’s top medical centers, where he was admitted to a high-security isolation unit. His wife and four children were evacuated separately and monitored. (source)

During those dark days, Peter faced a question that many Christians quietly carry: What happens when you trust God completely but are still afraid to die?

In their first interview after his recovery, Peter and Rebekah shared honestly with Christianity Today. Despite a rooted faith and hope of heaven, Peter admitted he was afraid. He had always thought of Christ’s victory over death as a card to trump earthly peril, but when faced with a life-threatening situation, the fear was real. (source)

That honesty is itself a gift to the church. It reminds us that faith does not mean the absence of fear. It means trusting God through the fear.

Recovery and Gratitude

On the evacuation flight, medics administered monoclonal antibodies — synthetic antibodies that prevent viruses from replicating. The treatment made Peter feel nearly instantly better, though his fever and other symptoms lingered. Over the following days, his condition steadily improved. (source)

On June 6, 2026, Charité University Hospital released Peter and his family, symptom-free. “Words cannot adequately express my gratitude,” Peter said. He credited the medical team at Charité as “the good Samaritan to us — we’re not citizens of there, they don’t know us, but they took us in.” (source)

The family flew to the United States to stay with relatives while the CDC monitored Peter’s recovery. Under Serge’s protocols, they cannot return to Congo for at least three months. And even when they do return, their medical specialties — surgery and obstetrics — are not directly useful for combatting Ebola. That door may have closed for them. But their calling has not.

The Prayer of a Twelve-Year-Old Patient

Perhaps the most moving detail to emerge from the Staffords’ story came from Nyankunde, where a 12-year-old boy Peter had operated on heard what happened. The boy began praying for him. “Well, Dr. Peter healed me,” he told the missionary friends, “so I’m going to pray that God heals Dr. Peter.” (source)

Rebekah reflected on that: “His life is hard, and we pray that that little glimpse — or his understanding of who God is and his willingness to pray to God — will continue in his life.”

That is the quiet fruit of missionary work. Not headlines. Not numbers. A child in a remote Congolese village, learning to pray because a surgeon showed him the love of Christ.

What This Story Teaches Us

The Stafford family’s journey holds lessons for every believer:

  1. Missionary work is costly. The Staffords left comfort, proximity to family, and medical resources to serve in one of the hardest places on earth. That is what love in action looks like.

  2. Faith and fear can coexist. Peter Stafford trusted God completely and was still afraid to die. That is not a failure of faith. It is the honesty of a man who knew that following Jesus does not exempt us from suffering — it meets us in it.

  3. The global church is interconnected. A weekly Zoom prayer group of missionaries prayed for Peter. A child in Congo prayed for him. Believers around the world prayed. The body of Christ acted as one body.

  4. The work continues. The Staffords are not giving up. They grieve for the families and communities they left behind in Nyankunde — people who have no option to evacuate if they get sick. Peter said, “I feel sadness that our friends, everyone else, if they get sick, this is what they have. I think to lament and to be sad for what is occurring there can be a Christian attitude toward it.”

At Bethel, we believe that supporting education and values formation includes standing with missionaries like the Staffords — people who give their skills, their health, and sometimes their lives so that others may know the love of Christ. Proverbs 9:10 reminds us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Peter Stafford knows that fear. It is not the fear of Ebola. It is the fear of the God who is with us, even in the isolation ward.

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