Gospel for Asia

“While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ He said. ‘Be clean!’ And immediately the leprosy left him. ” —Luke 5:12–13 (NIV) Some things about love and leprosy seem to be diametrically opposed. For several millennia, people with leprosy have been regarded as “unclean,” even in the Levitical law of the Old Testament (see Leviticus 13). Our natural response to anything characterized as unclean is to avoid it. Even more so, we naturally avoid that which is unsightly to our own eyes, whether it has been labeled “unclean” or not. If we are willing to be excruciatingly honest with ourselves, we must confess that association with disease, especially if it is disfiguring, is something that we naturally want to avoid and that we may go out of our way to avoid. This is u...

World Leprosy Day Report #1 Leprosy is one of the most misunderstood sicknesses in the world. Many people in the West think leprosy is a disease in which fingers and limbs fall off, is highly contagious, is incurable, and has been eradicated–if they think about leprosy at all. We don’t recognize the many facts about leprosy because it rarely appears in highly developed countries. It may surprise many readers that about 200 cases of leprosy are reported every year in the United States. There are currently more than 3,000 cases of leprosy under active medical supervision in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and other health care organizations refer to leprosy as Hansen’s disease. Much like a rose, however, leprosy by any other name is still leprosy and still carries with it the deeply imbedded stigma that has been attached to it for millennia. Leprosy is a “a complex infectious” bacterial disease. The disease can be contagious, but is no...

The international observance of World Leprosy Day is held annually on the last Sunday in January. Its purpose is to raise awareness of the disease. Churches and humanitarian organizations around the globe participate in World Leprosy Day by communicating facts, dispelling myths long associated with leprosy, and praying for those afflicted and those who provide aid to them. World Leprosy Day was established in 1954 by French philanthropist Raoul Follereau. It was originally observed on January 30, linking it to the death of Mahatma Gandhi on that date in 1948. Gandhi is quoted as having said, “Eliminating leprosy is the only work I have not been able to complete in my lifetime,” although he worked continually to help those afflicted with the disease in India. The goal of the World Health Organization is for every nation to have zero documented cases of leprosy. The official measure of zero cases is one per 10,000 people per country. Although India achieved that goal in 2005, and the go...