Sudan Relief Fund is following the example of Christ Himself by bringing life-saving care—and hope—to those suffering from leprosy.
When we think about the corporal works of mercy, feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless come to mind first. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, countless families and churches run soup kitchens and canned food drives. And what youth group hasn’t built shelters on a mission trip or volunteered for Habitat for Humanity?
But when was the last time you thought about visiting the sick?
If you think back to your Sunday school days, I’m sure you remember the story of Christ healing the lepers. It's difficult to imagine a clearer example of the corporal works of mercy in action. It may also surprise you that this work is still necessary—not just visiting the sick close to home, but ministering specifically to those with leprosy.
These days, leprosy is easily treatable. It’s no longer the certain death sentence it was when Christ healed the ten victims on his way to Jerusalem—at least not directly. But social stigma persists and poverty makes access to treatment a dim hope for so many in the developing world.
Expelled from their homes and communities, people struggling with leprosy in the young, war-torn country of South Sudan are cut off from their neighbors, their sources of income, and the very clinics that could save them. Victims of this brutal disease face uncertainty, homelessness, and hunger.
Near a town called Wau in northwestern South Sudan, two hundred families face these trials together in the Agok Leper Colony. They’re cut off from society but they are not alone. The Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa, supported by Sudan Relief Fund, bring food, supplies, medicine—and hope.
In Malo, just outside of Rumbek, South Sudan, hundreds more who had been shunned by their communities were found “lying under trees, waiting to die” a few years ago. They were banished from their homes, facing life in the desert, surrounded by hyenas. Then Sudan Relief Fund and the Missionary Sisters of Charity stepped in. They established a colony and brought clean water, emergency relief, and crucial medicine. Today, the colony serves over 10,000 people. SRF Senior Vice President Matt Smith recently returned from a trip to the colony with joyful news: the colony is thriving, and new huts for the lepers, as well as a nursery school has been established.
It takes great courage to carry out the works of mercy with such a stigmatized population, but the relatively cheap and simple interventions Sudan Relief Fund and the sisters are able to offer change everything for these vulnerable people.
Without the colony, a woman with leprosy would be forced outside of city walls along with her children, regardless of whether they had yet contracted the disease. She’d wander the desert, try to provide for her children as long as she could, and ultimately die of starvation, exposure, or attack by wild animals.
But Sudan Relief Fund’s works of mercy give this woman the opportunity for a drastically different life.
When she arrives at one of the leper colonies, she and her children would be given food and started on antibiotics. After six weeks of treatment, she would no longer be contagious. She could hold her son without worrying about passing on the deadly disease.
For the next year, the sisters would work to ensure that treatments continue uninterrupted. She would receive antibiotics on schedule, thanks to the donations of people from across the world which allow Sudan Relief Fund to keep up with the demand for medication.
Scarred by a life with leprosy, but now free of the disease, she would sit at a sewing machine the staff taught her to use, nimbly working the fabric even after losing several fingers.
She would be cured, her children would be safe, and she would possess new and valuable career skills. And she would be one of hundreds whose lives are transformed by this work every year.
For Sudan Relief Fund and its fearless partners on the ground, the work doesn’t end with curing leprosy. Visiting the sick begins with living alongside a group of people no one else dares to even visit, and ends with spiritual support and reintegration into society.
