Touching and healing lepers

We have just returned from five-and-a-half months of service at Hospital Mennonita in Paraguay. The hospital was established 50 years ago as an expression of thanks for the new home and freedom Mennonites had found in Paraguay. Dr. John Schmidt, his wife Clara, Mennonite Central Committee and two or three other significant persons with the churches agreed to do something for lepers, the poorest of the poor in Paraguay, as Christ did 2000 years ago when He touched lepers and healed them. The churches took up this challenge so successfully that the disease has almost been eliminated in Paraguay and they are now in a position to help neighbouring countries by example and teaching.

Dr. John J. and Elfrieda Krahn (right) live on Pender Island, B.C. and are members of Arnold Community Church. While in Paraguay, John also translated Dr. S. Browne’s booklet Leprosy in the Bible into German.

Today “Kilometre 81” is a beautiful garden with two hospital buildings, a large polyclinic with six offices, a pharmacy, a lab, an administrative centre, an orthopedic workshop for shoes and prostheses, a central kitchen, a laundry and multiple private homes for the staff. The tropical flowers, bushes, palm trees, citrus trees, well-trimmed hedges and pine trees create an environment conducive to healing.

This healing community did not come easily; it required great sacrifice and money, and still demands intense work (staff work 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a siesta). Thirty clinics are held around the country which treat leprosy and other skin conditions, tuberculosis, diabetes, clubbed feet and many new or neglected fractures. A few cases will illustrate:

• Blanca, a 27-year-old mother of three children, was recently admitted. She was emaciated, with gross ulcers on both legs. She had been shunned for 10 years, sent out of the home during the day and allowed to return only at night. Coming to us, she was half starved – and even more starved for love and affection. A cousin came with her. She received MDT, a medication which rendered her non-infectious after 24–48 hours so she could mingle again with friends and family.
• Milado Martinez, a 50-year-old, was admitted for surgery. One evening when I was passing out his supper, he wanted to tell me something (in Spanish). The nurse helped translate. “I’ve been converted. I’ve found the Lord!” he said with a glorious expression on his face. I gave him a hug, telling him that we were now brothers in Christ. Next day, I helped amputate his left leg, which was gangrenous.
• A father’s life was spared from leprosy and from the threat of death, and his son’s job as a school principal was spared. We had treated his father for leprosy so he was no longer countagious to the community. We came to the school as our worker in the area had heard the son was trying to kill his father. We explained to him that his father’s condition was no longer a danger to anyone. Soon the principal welcomed our worker to show videos and give a lecture in his school and answer questions on the disease. The stigma has been removed from leprosy.

The Paraguayan model illustrates Jeremiah 29:5–7 that we should seek the good of whatever country we are in, and Matthew 11:2–6 that the healing of lepers is a sign of God’s Kingdom and proof that Jesus is the Saviour of the world.

—John J. Krahn