Our ministry this first half of the month has been working with leprosy patients. Everyday we go over an hour away to a leprosy colony where we visit people in their homes, help clean their homes and do their laundry. We have also been to the hospital a few times to visit with patients there. And I don’t think any amount of preparation could have made my heart ready for what was about to happen to it.
Many people have been “cured.” Leprosy never leaves the body, but remains dormant inside for the rest of your life. But for too many of them, it’s too late. We came upon such a woman. We were visiting a different building of the hospital than we visited before. And it was a whole new experience. This building was for the terminal cases. All the patients had their own “cubicles” with a cot/bed and nightstand. They were all decorated like they were trying to decorate their homes. Because these were their homes. Some women had been there for twenty years. We were visiting with a woman and talking with her about her life. While I was standing there at the end of her bed, I glanced in the cubicle next to hers. My stomach dropped. What I saw…she didn’t even look human at first glance. I looked away. But it was just one of those things where I couldn’t not look at her. She was skin and bone. Except usually, whenever I’ve seen people that are thin, their skin is stretched tight over their bones. This woman’s skin hung from her. Her face was hanging from lack of muscles or nerves. She had no fingers, and her feet had been cut off. She was bald and tiny. And just watching her, I could tell she…wasn’t all there. We finally went to her cubicle. Our friend Fone tried to talk to her. She either couldn’t hear her, or couldn’t understand her. She was pitiful and pathetic, scratching herself against her bed because she had no fingers, drooling because she had no way to stop it. She only understood her life to be about eating and sleeping. She couldn’t do or accept anything else. My chest tightened. I could have sworn that my heart was being ripped into pieces this time. I felt so…wrong…standing there just looking at her. Like she was some animal in a cage and we were all just staring. It felt wrong. I couldn’t do it. I felt like I was exploiting her just by watching her. Which is why there aren’t any pictures in this blog.
I walked away. I sat in a chair around the corner and prayed. And my thought was, Death is in this place. I felt sick and dizzy and my head hurt. But nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I just couldn’t, can’t, understand how she could come to be like that. How could this happen? I wanted to scream out loud. Why? Why her? How? I was so angry. Someone needed to give me an answer! I wanted an answer! But I knew that this was another question without an answer. Looking at her in that moment, I could understand how people can look at the world and not believe in God, just in looking at her. This woman, and so many others, are prisoners in their own minds and bodies. All day they sit, eat, sleep, wait, and that’s about it. They completely have to rely on another human being to take care of their basic needs. While I sat there, I noticed another woman trying so hard to do the simplest things. She was blind and she was feeling around to find her drink and straw. And then she was trying to do something else. For minutes, I watched her, and I was trying so hard to just figure out what she wanted so I could help her. I asked God desperately, “Lord, what does she want??” I felt helpless. It was a theme feeling all day.
As a writer, I want so badly to be able to construe in writing how I’m feeling and what I’ve seen. But it’s impossible. And that’s frustrating. Nothing I say will make people get it. Because my words can’t touch the feelings and the experiences. I felt God’s urgency and frustration, I guess. He just wants us to get it. A woman said today that she was just waiting to die. I wanted so badly for her to get it. To understand this hope of true Life. I felt like one small person in a dying world. But I have to cling to the greatness of my Jesus, who is bigger than death. He conquered it, after all.
This is just one story and lesson out of the millions that I’m learning everyday. I only hope that they’re doing something, anything, for someone reading about them.
Trying to Light Up the World,
~Eryn
