How one Family’s Dedication and Love are Transforming Many Communities
The young lovers married, but leprosy prevented their initial pregnancies from coming to term. Finally, one baby survived, a boy they named Johnson.
In another leprosy community a girl named Prasanna was also born to leprosy-affected parents. Like Johnson, this little one didn’t contract the leprosy but was also forced to carry the stigma of her parents’ disease throughout her childhood. Other children mocked and taunted both of them. Their prospects for earning a living were also extremely limited, too often relegating leprosy-affected family members to begging. For Johnson and Prasanna, the future looked dark and empty.
As a child, Prasanna’s life had taken a fateful turn when an accident caused her a severe head injury, causing her to call out in her heart to the God she did not yet fully know. A man in white, appearing in a vision, touched her head and she was healed. Prasanna realized that this man was Jesus, whom she’d heard about from others, and she chose to put her faith in Him.
Years later, Prasanna’s family moved to a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad. She felt deep compassion for her parents and others who suffered the disfiguring effects of leprosy, trying her best to care for them, but needed more medical knowledge. That’s when she decided to enroll in a training program where she was to learn how to treat the symptoms of leprosy.
Meanwhile, Johnson, who also lived in the same colony outside of Hyderabad, was orphaned by the age of fourteen when leprosy took his parents to an early grave. He and Prasanna met, but her parents, who belonged to one of India’s higher Hindu castes, didn’t want her to have anything to do with Johnson whose family were members of the “untouchable” Dalit caste. As irony would have it, Prasanna’s family became, in effect, “untouchables” as well by contracting leprosy. So, after winning Prasanna’s heart, Johnson proceeded to win the hearts of her parents as well. The couple soon married. Formerly a Hindu, Johnson’s heart was won to the Lord by Prasanna’s witness.
Soon after, children Sarah, Bhaskar, Srikanth, and Boaz entered their lives one by one. Prasanna continued to use her skills – and compassion – to help leprosy patients. But times were lean. Johnson pulled a rickshaw for a living, while Prasanna earned a modest income as a school helper. Some days the family ate only one meal.
Over time, however, Prasanna’s persistence in performing the difficult, dangerous (due to the threat of infection), and often disturbing tasks of caring for the wounds of her colony’s patients earned her a saint-like reputation both within the community and beyond. As her daughter grew, Prasanna taught Sarah the same skills, modeling her compassion at the same time. I first met Prasanna and her family in 2012. Witnessing their love and care for the patients, I was soon able to start raising ministry funds to help provide for the needs of the small medical clinic in the colony. Food and other basic necessities were also contributed on a monthly basis to help the families. Sarah continued to work by her mother’s side, and eventually took up her mother’s mantle by helping to teach others the nursing skills her mother had passed on to her. Soon afterward we were able to help Sarah, and her family set up sewing classes. Next, computer skills, taxi driving, and beautician courses were added to train the younger generation of these leprosy-affected families (who had escaped getting the disease) in livelihoods other than begging.
Without the Christian leadership of this courageous family, it is doubtful so many blessings could have been poured out for the patients of not only their own colony but extended to the scores of other colonies in the Hyderabad area where they serve. They have truly laid their lives down for the Lord’s “least of these,” and I am so humbled to be able to partner with them in their labors of love.
Your Servant in Love;
Project Manager, His Missions International
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