Our trip to Yunnan in March was packed with activities: we visited five high schools, held ten mental-health seminars, and reviewed the transcripts of forty high school students, along with their applications for financial assistance. In addition, we visited two co-workers (a husband-and-wife team) in Lingcan with the Tsous from the United States. These two co-workers and their family have been taking care of the lepers at the rehabilitation villages for many years.

All of the lepers’ recovery villages are located in high mountains, very remote and isolated from the world. From one perspective, the villages are blessed with scenic beauty, fresh air, and a pollution-free surrounding. But, truth be told, the lepers in these villages have been abandoned by the society. To reach the first recovery village, we had to ride a bus from Lingcan for seven hours and then travel on a muddy road to go up the mountain. While the bus was trekking the bumpy, muddy road, we felt as if we were getting a free massage of the best kind. And as the bus circled the one-way mountain road, we enjoyed nature’s scenic beauty and, at the same time, also witnessed the terrifying images of what lay at the bottom of the mountain slopes. Thank God we arrived at the village safe and sound. The roads in the village, too, were muddy. About fifty recovered leper families lived in this village in simple, substandard houses, the walls of which were marked by cracks and holes.

The second recovery village we visited was perched on a high mountain in the mountainous area of Yunnan. Because the village was inaccessible by motor vehicles, we had to hike up to it on the mountain’s steep slopes. We thoroughly understood then the meaning of the Chinese saying, “It’s easier to go up than to go down a mountain.” In fact, had it not been for two of my brothers in Christ who took meticulous care of me along the way, I would really have abandoned the effort halfway. This recovery village was smaller, with about ten recovered leper families living there. The houses here were better, built with mud bricks, and lined up in two rows, with five or six rooms in each row and one family per room.

Our co-workers visited the recovered lepers in three villages every month in rotation, teaching them how to take care of their numb hands and feet; giving them comforters to ward off the cold, medicine to treat their illnesses, and soap to cleanse their wounds; making shoe pads to protect their injured feet; cleaning the diseased areas of their body; and encouraging them to relive a life of self-respect and self-confidence. Some of the lepers’ hands and feet have been diseased beyond recovery. Our co-workers would advise them to undergo surgery to have their hands or feet amputated at the hospital in town and have prostheses installed so that they could regain their ability to move about.

The image of these co-workers cleaning the lepers’ diseased hands or feet and talking to them about God’s love at the same time was absolutely beautiful. It looked as if the Lord Jesus were crouching there washing the lepers’ feet. Although the lepers were shunned by other people, He did not forget them. He moved our loving co-workers to serve the lepers and to introduce the fountainhead of love to them—to see them smile and deeply experience what it was like to hear love, see love, and feel the true meaning of love. Love speaks through action; without the action of love, there is no love. Let us spread our love through our actions.

(The author is Board Member of Go and Love Foundation)