In 2023, Singapore-born plastic surgeon Dr Joseph Luo, his fashion designer wife Nicola and their eight-month-old son Lucas packed their bags and moved to Kenya, Africa for a year.

There, Joseph served as a medical missionary at Kijabe Hospital, performing corrective surgeries and training African doctors.

“It was my heart’s desire to have an overseas mission experience as a surgeon,” Joseph, 36, told Salt&Light.

“I had travelled Asia quite a bit and wanted to visit Africa. My wife also had a childhood dream of serving in Africa.

“We had a ‘vision board’ as a married couple hanging in our bedroom. Africa was one of the things that we put up on the board, and it came to pass.”

Putting his talents to use 

Plastic surgery may not be a common medical specialty when one thinks of missions to developing countries, but it was specifically with missions in mind that Joseph picked his specialty.

“Plastic surgeons address problems all parts of the body face; it’s not limited to a specific anatomical location and the scope of work is very varied,” he explained.

“It lends itself well to developing world work in that you don’t need very complex or advanced tools or equipment that are hard to secure.”

As a fifth year medical student looking to do a placement, Joseph had heard about Africa Inland Mission (now Africa Inland Church) in Kenya and its mission hospital, AIC Kijabe Hospital.

“My classmates and I were looking for a medical elective placement,” he said. “We had done some research into Kijabe, but we ended up going to a mission hospital in rural India.”

But Africa was always on his mind. 

Joseph performing surgery on a patient at Kijabe Mission Hospital, where he worked and trained African doctors.

“When I was in my last two years of surgical training, I contacted a few mission organisations looking for opportunities to volunteer as a plastic surgeon.

“There are very few mission hospitals with existing plastic surgery services so the range of choices is quite limited. Kijabe was one, and it had just one permanent plastic surgeon.”

Joseph got in touch with Africa Inland Mission, which arranged a phone call with a longtime Australian missionary and the plastic surgeon at Kijabe.

“They wanted to start a plastic surgery training programme for PAACS (Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons) which they couldn’t do with just the one surgeon that was there.  

“So they planned to start it around when I arrived. We had another colleague who started as a plastic surgeon at Kijabe just a week before me.  So the department went from one surgeon to three in a matter of two weeks.”

Joseph’s work included performing cleft lip surgery and other corrective surgeries to allow patients, most of them children, better quality of life.

He shared one story. “Nelly was a four-year-old girl who sustained severe flame burns to her right lower limb. This was a severe injury and had healed without surgical treatment,” he described.

As a result, the scar contracted in such a way that Nelly’s right knee was held flexed at a 130-degree angle. Her ankle was flexed such that her foot touched her leg, and she had lost all her toes.

“I was shocked at the severity of her injury,” Joseph admitted. “I could imagine how painful and drawn out her initial healing phase would have been.

Joseph (middle in cap) with baby Lucas and fellow mission workers in Kenya. God met all their needs: “We also experienced a lot of financial blessing despite not earning an income,” he said.

“She now had a significant functional impairment — she was not able to walk.”

Nelly was not the last such patient he saw — he saw them monthly. Burns are a common cause of injury in Africa and many patients are not able to access surgical care quickly.

But Nelly was blessed. “We were able to release the contracture of her knee and resurface with a flap reconstruction that enabled her to hold her leg almost straight,” said Joseph.

“At a second operation, we were able to correct her ankle deformity. This then allowed her to walk and weight-bear with her right leg.”

Today, Nelly is able to walk, thanks to the surgeries. “I was glad that we were able to intervene while she was young. If left longer, her functional outcomes would have been much worse,” he said. 

“Treating Nelly was a very rewarding experience as I was able to see how our operations were able to make a significant difference in her function that would change her for a lifetime.”

Growing up in the knowledge of God 

Joseph is the youngest of three sons born to a Singaporean building contractor and his accountant wife. 

The family migrated to Perth when he was three. Joseph and his brothers —nine and seven years his senior — are in medicine.

Raised in a Christian home, Joseph has been attending church all his life. “I grew up believing God and Jesus existed, and that what the Bible said is true,” he said.

“I had a simple faith as a child, accepting what my parents taught me as true. I had a memory of receiving Christ as my Lord and Saviour when I was around seven.”

In university, he began to “really grow” in his faith. “I developed stronger daily habits of spending time with God. Over the years, as I walked with Jesus, I also got more involved in ministry, serving as cell group leader, worship leader, musician, being on the preaching team, church elder, chair of the missions committee.”

Blessed generations: Joseph and Nicola (back row, on the right) with their extended family: his parents and two brothers and all their children. All three brothers are in the medical profession.

His passion for missions began during university. Joseph remembered, “I had at least one word from a minister that I would be involved in medical missions and that I would lead trips. That sat well with me spiritually and did come to pass with time.”

As a medical student, he went on and led some short-term trips over the years to places like Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

It was also during a mission trip that he got to know his wife. “Our first mission trip together was in Hyderabad India in Dec 2018.  

“There were a fair few people registered to go, but for various reasons, they dropped out and it became myself, Nicky and our pastor.”

They got together after that mission trip. On Christmas Eve, 2019, they were engaged. By October 2020 they were married.

Lessons from Kenya

Proverbs 23:6 says “…in all your way acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Joseph made the decision to go with his family to Kenya, despite his parents’ reservations. 

“I involve God in my decision making. I may not get a clear word to go but if I feel peace, I will act on it.  And I trust God to make my paths straight whether I made a good or a bad decision.”

They returned safely to Australia early 2024, where they recently had their second child, Joshua. In August, they are headed for Taiwan where he will be doing further training in craniofacial surgery. 

Joseph pointed out that the year in Kenya was not as much of a hardship posting as some other types of missions. For one, religious persecution was not a factor: 85% of Kenya’s population is Christian.

Although the roads were dirt roads, Joseph and Nicola were provided a furnished house with electricity, running water and Internet. 

“My wife was kind of expecting huts and no electricity, while I expected it to be more comfortable than it was,” he admitted. 

“It was constantly kind of dusty, there was a good amount of insects, the electricity sometimes stopped, water sometimes stopped — often was brown — Internet was slow and sometimes stopped working.”

It was having to face these small inconveniences daily that taught Joe things about himself.

Being in Kenya was a time of self-discovery for Joseph. “I think I was probably burnt out,” he said. Kenya’s slow pace allowed him to regain his enjoyment of surgery.

“I didn’t realise how used to a comfortable life I had become. I realised the more comfortable I lived in my pre-Kenya life, the less adaptable I was to different conditions.

“I realised how impatient I was. The slow of pace of life and the slow systems in the hospital really tested me.

“I realised how tired I was. I had been working as a surgical trainee the year before, life was busy, and we had lots of activities going on all the time. 

“Once I started working in Kenya — without the same intense hours, and all the social, church, family, ministry commitments in Australia — I realised I wanted to be busier. 

“I started to enjoy surgery more. I think I was probably a bit burnt out in regular life and going through everything on autopilot.”

Kenya did make their marriage stronger, he added. “Kenya was a forced slow-down after our busy life in Australia. We spent a lot more time with each other and we enjoyed each other a lot more.”

God was his steadfast support that year. “I learnt to pray more especially for patients — face to face and on my own. I felt much more reliant on God to help and intervene when dealing with difficult clinical situations and complications,” he said.

The couple also experienced financial blessing, not being in any lack despite the fact they did not fundraise for their mission.

Even in the “small things”, he turned to God. “One of my more frequent and earnest prayers was simply that Lucas would go to sleep at night without too much tears, and stay asleep without waking too many times through the night.”

It may not have been a dramatic mission, but for Joseph and Nicola, “Going to Africa was a dream we both had in place and God was faithful and kind to bring it to pass.

“We learned that God is faithful. He looked after us perfectly during that time.”

Stay tuned for Nicola’s story of how God opened a door for her to serve Kenyans with her fashion background, while raising a baby.

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