NEWSLETTER MAY/JUNE 2007- VOLUME 29
INDEPENDENT CHURCH IN INDIA PO BOX 238 FREDERICKSBURG, PA 17026
website: www.indchurch.org email:info@indchurch.org
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| Raj: Rescued From the Grip of Death - Through your love and support, the Lord is using Independent Church in India to bring His light and hope to many leprosy victims in the deepest of despair known to mankind. Below is the story of a man named Raj who has leprosy and has been living at our leprosy community. His distressing tale has been untold for 75 years, but now it is time others hear about the pain and misery this man and countless other leprosy victims endure. |
Raj grew up never knowing where he was born or who his parents were. He never had a chance to go to school in his childhood. As an orphan, he never enjoyed being a child, because he had to always be thinking about survival. He would have to beg to stay alive. When he turned twenty years old, he finally got a job, but at this job his leg got broken. Everyone abandoned him, so he received no help and had to start begging again. Because of lack of treatment, his leg became crippled so he could no longer work. He was homeless and stayed in open public places and begged for his food each day. When Raj was thirty years old, he got leprosy, and has had to continue to beg and live his whole life alone in rejection as an untouchable. Raj never got married or had a family because of his disease. All Raj knew was to fearfully and diligently practice his devotion to the Hindu idols hoping that they would have mercy on him, but they never did. He had never heard that there was a God in heaven that truly did love him.
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Raj
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Raj's legs were both severely infected when he came to the leprosy community.
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When Raj's leprosy became worse, he began to live at a government hospital, but there he received very little care, and he had to go outside to continue begging for money so he could pay for the very low-class hospital food and medicine. The hospital was a poor example of sanitation. Pigs ran loose around the building, and they didn't even have a bathroom. The lepers were often verbally abused and harassed by the workers. The doctors themselves have become so accustomed to the bondage of the caste system that they will not even touch lepers. Instead, the doctors keep a distance from them and will just ask them what their symptoms are, and then the leper must put the medicine on his or her own sores if he has any money to purchase it. Here some of the lepers at least have a bed, and a roof over their heads, but they live together in an unclean, foul-smelling room with no fans for the hot and sweltering nights.
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| After Raj stayed here for six years, the hospital began to discharge many of the lepers because they had decided to phase out the leprosy department. Many of the lepers that lived at the hospital were scattered and went back to begging on the streets. Raj and some others could not leave the hospital because of their declining health. Raj's legs became more infected and he became too weak to go to the outside to beg for his food. The hospital no longer took care of him. They only gave him a very small amount of old, stale rice in the morning and this was all that Raj was surviving on. Raj began getting thinner and weaker. He was slowly starving to death, and his legs were becoming more and more infected. |
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When Raj came to ICII's leprosy community he was so poor he didn't even own a shirt. Lowell is helping him put on a new one.
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Noah, who is also a leper, now living in the small house at ICII's leprosy community, went to visit the hospital one day where Raj was staying. Noah is also a native missionary of Independent Church in India, who brings the good news of the Gospel to other lepers as his health permits. At the hospital, Noah saw Raj suffering with no care, so he spent the small amount of money he had on a taxi so he could bring Raj to the leprosy community. Even though there was no bed or space available yet for Raj, Noah felt Raj would be much safer, and receive good care . Noah was feeling so blessed to be living at the community with the good food and all his needs met, that he thought it would be a small sacrifice to give his own bed to Raj. Instead, he would be willing to sleep on the floor until another bed was provided for him.
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| When Noah returned that same day to the community, he brought Raj with him, leaning on his shoulder, now very frail and emaciated. Raj had serious infections in both his lower legs and feet, he had poor eyesight, and was near starvation. ICII warmly welcomed Raj to his new home. There was also a group of missionaries visiting ICII at the time and two of them who had nursing skills began to wrap up Raj's infected sores. After a couple of days of receiving prayer, treatment for his ulcerated feet, good food, and loving kindness, Raj's condition miraculously improved, his vision cleared, and he was able to stand and walk without help.
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Native Missionary Noah praying over another man wih leprosy.
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