Day 3

Traveling up a muddy road filled with potholes and water buffalo, we rose into the mountains of Nepal. There were a few gasps as we ascended when our van flirted with the edge of the road, and in doing so, showed us a vast ravine filled with trees and rivers. Traveling continued, and so did the gasps and subsequent laughs from our driver until we reached Anandaban Leprosy Hospital.

We walked inside and met with the hospital's director, who gave us a detailed explanation on how everything got started and how it all works. I was curious about the picture of Princess Diana I saw outside his office, and he smiled with pride as he told me about the day she came to Anandaban. Several royal figures have trekked the winding mountain to visit the hospital, and I can't say I'm surprised; the place is incredible. On our tour, we visited the different wards and medical rooms, and observed that virtually all aspects of the patient's treatment and aid were done at the hospital; men make artificial limbs specially for each patient and medical labs work hard to diagnose and treat them. It makes sense, though, because it's not as if this hospital is located in the middle of a thriving urban center. When one of the men working in the lab told us they had a mouse colony upstairs, we wanted to know more. Since the hospital does not have the funds to do cell culturs, they have to use mice instead. There have to be anywhere from twenty to twenty six mice for a single patient, just to figure out if they have leprosy, and it takes four to six months to know for sure. Nepal has treated 150,000 leprosy patients, and is currently overseeing 4,000 cases today. In Nepal, families will disown their children or relatives if they find out they have leprosy. People that live in remote villages outside of Kathmandu have no way of even knowing what it is they have, let alone that there is treatment for it. Like most things, the faster you catch it, the less severe the consequences. It was evident that the younger patients looked healthier than the old, missing only a few fingers or having minor skin problems. The more elderly people had amputated legs or hands, and sometimes both. Another common defect was what our tour guide called the "claw hand," a large number of the patients had this on both hands. One neat thing about the hospital is that it does not treat only leprosy victims, though that is its main focus. We saw pregnant women and children with broken bones in the hospital. Mixing in people with other medical problems helps lessen the stigma of leprosy patients.

Once the tour was finished and lunch was eaten, we all filed back into a women's ward where we spent about an hour with them. Earlier that day, while on our tour, we would hand out Beanie Babies to any children we saw, even ones that weren't patients. Giving those children a stuffed animal is probably one of the most emotional experiences I've ever undergone. Most of the children had never even seen a stuffed animal before, since they're from places where such luxuries don't exist. They were hesitant to take them, but once they did, the looks on their faces were more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Anyway, when we entered the women's ward later in the day, it was filled mostly with adult and eldery women. I was unsure what to do beside sit with them at first, but I decided they might like a stuffed animal too. They did. The first women I gave it to lit up so brightly from the haze of her complacent state that she began to shake from side to side while grinning. One by one, we passed out probably twenty Beanie Babies and then we all watched as forty year old and seventy year old women began to trade and swap their toys with loud laughs and pointing everywhere. It was something very special. Later, I went back into a smaller connected room with a very old woman. I sat down next to her and started rummaging through my backpack for something she could look at or that might give us some sort ability to communicate. The only thing I had in there was my Bible, so I took it out. Now, you should know that the hospital is religiously affiliated, but obviously it's more likely that patients check into it because they have leprosy and not because they want to become Christians. So, you can imagine my surprise as she said the word "cross" while outlining the green one on my Bible. She suddenly turned around and grabbed her own Bible that was translated into Nepali. Her eyes were excited and fixed directly on mine. She flipped through pages and pointed at random passages. She finally found a page marked with red pen and began reading to me. She read a whole passage to me in Nepali, and though I hadn't the slightest inclination of what it was she was saying, you can all be assured I felt God speak through her more strongly than I sometimes do when reading verses in English. I asked one of the leaders with us who spoke English which passage she was reading from, and she told me it was Psalm 23. When I sat back down with her, she pointed at my Bible and wanted me to read to her. I read her Psalm 41 to her and she smiled interestedly while I read to her about the Lord sustaining those on their sickbeds and giving them hope.

The experience yesterday afternoon at the hospital reminds me of how simple life is and how complicated it sometimes seems back home. When I'm focusing outwardly instead of inwardly, the day to day experience is much more fulfilling.


This is a little boy with a fractured leg who we gave the first Beanie Babie to. As you can see, it's nearly as big as he is :-)

edit: I'm having picture problems again...I *think* you can click the picture and it'll take you to a full version of it. For some reason it won't all show up.