An elderly British Columbia couple working as missionaries in Kenya are making a good recovery in a Nairobi hospital after surviving a brutal machete attack from a gang that allegedly co-operated with their own bodyguards, a fellow missionary said Friday.

John and Eloise Bergen were in critical condition after Wednesday’s savage attack, but Steven Pippin, a volunteer missionary with Hope for the Nations, told The Canadian Press the couple is “out of the woods” and has now stabilized.

“They were doing really well, in great spirits,” Pippin said in a telephone interview from the Kenyan town of Kitale where he worked alongside the Bergens.

“They’re alert and they’re . . . really improving in one day.”

Despite the positive prognosis, Pippin said both Bergens have sustained major injuries and trauma in the attack that saw the couple swarmed by a gang of men at their Kitale home.

Pippin said John Bergen, 70, suffered a blow to the head, arm fractures, and a serious knee injury that will require the joint to be rewired. He was initially left for dead in the bushes after his beating.

“It’ll take him a bit to heal because he won’t be able to walk with what happened to his leg,” Pippin said.

Eloise Bergen, 65, is deeply traumatized from witnessing the attack on her husband and then being beaten herself, Pippin said, adding she will likely remain in the hospital for some time both to heal and be close to her partner.

The woman, who is originally from the U.S., sought help for her and her husband when their attackers had left their home.

She crawled out from under a pile of furniture, freed her bound hands with scissors, dragged her husband into their vehicle and drove to Hope for the Nations offices with her face still swollen and bleeding.

Pippin said police had arrested three men in the attack, as well as two guards assigned to protect the couple, adding that at least four suspects remain at large.

Pippin said the guards allowed a gang of seven attackers onto the Bergens’ property, then ran to report the incident to police and returned to their posts.

He said he didn’t believe the attack would faze the couple in their missionary work with Hope for the Nations, but said their stay in Kenya may be curtailed because of their injuries.

“They don’t want to let this defeat them in their purpose of coming here and doing good and helping the people of Kenya,” Pippin said. “So the talk for sure has been to get well and get back to work to the things they’ve been doing.”

The Bergens arrived in Kenya from Vernon, B.C., just four months ago, primarily to help women and children made widows and orphans by the conflict in the African country earlier this year.

It was their first overseas trip with Hope for the Nations but they had been involved with other organizations in the past, said Ralph Bromley, president of the missionary group, a faith-based, non-denominational organization with projects in Africa, Asia, Russia and Mexico.

Pippin said the couple had been working with orphans and street kids in Kenya, as well as growing vegetables in their own garden to distribute to children’s homes.

“John and Eloise are just kind, giving people who are out just to help people,” he said. “We need more people in the world like John and Eloise.”