1 Chapel Talk Nan Mein 18 Feb 1998 Ps 27, Luke 6:20-31 Every ...

slithering over the back wall, I learned how fast I could run. I watched the beheading of
the deadly snake from a cautious distance. And everyone in the class had snake for
supper.
2
The girls’ dorm which I supervised was another world, another culture. On weekends I
walked from village to village with an interpreter, holding adult literacy classes-- another
teaching challenge. The other part of my routine was the weekly visit to the leper colony,
Mbalatahun, town of healing.
Leprosy-- the wasting disease feared around the world, throughout history. Its proper
name is Hanson’s Disease. Earlier this century, a cure was discovered, and medication
taken regularly would halt the disease. But if unchecked, leprosy is contagious. It is
spread by touch.
In 1925, when American Episcopalians arrived to start the Holy Cross Mission, they
founded schools and a hospital. One day, taking a break, one of the Americans was
strolling around the perimeter of the village. He saw a small path that he had not noticed
before, leading away from the village through the tall grass. Where does it go Nowhere,
he was told. He walked down the path a few hundred yards and came back. Who lives
there No one, he was told. No person there.
Curious, he went back. At the end of the path, in a little clearing, was a hut. A woman
and her husband lived there; both were lepers. They had been members of a local family,
but when they contracted leprosy, they ceased to exist. They ceased to be people. They
became invisible. Their leprosy was quite advanced. The disease, which is painless,
consumes tissue very slowly. Since it is contagious, the symptoms are usually first seen
on hands. Fingers die, leaving clumps of hand bones. The nose, facial tissue, toes, feet:
all die. These two lepers had little wheeled carts that had been made for them by their
former family. They could kneel on them, and push themselves in and out of their hut and
around their little clearing. Once a week, members of their former family brought food for
them, leaving it at the edge of the clearing.