an Easter people

I know this is coming sometime too late, but it deserved its own post and this is the first time I got around to it.

I was really worried about Easter this year. It would be the first holiday I’d spent away from home and family and the traditions I was used to. None of us had any family around obviously and we wanted someway to celebrate the day in a very special way.

Alyssa, a friend of mine with the most wonderful heart, had it on her heart for some time to visit the Leper Colony here in Ghana she’d heard about a couple times. I had seen it in a documentary I’d watched almost a year before deciding I was coming to Ghana and it had always been at the back of my mind. So we put it in to action. I got a hold of some priest contacts I had from Father Richmond and our program assistant director and set up a meeting for Easter Sunday afternoon.

That afternoon we headed past Malum Junction to meet Andy, one of the members of the Leper Committee at the Leprosarium. The people I met there changed my life.

The most familiar reference I had to lepers was from the bible, where they are shunned, ridiculed, and cast away from society. What would these people be like? Would they look different? Was it safe? Could I touch them? I had so many questions, but had no idea what I was about the experience.

As soon as we got there we were able to sit down with Andy and about 10 of the residents in the community; all of them cured lepers. They gave us the opportunity to ask them questions and were very open with their responses. We could ask them anything about their life before and now, the disease itself, how it has affected them, and how they felt about it. They were so open with their answers and I fell in love with them.

These people had been through so much. Most of them had been cast away by their families and looked down at by the rest of the community. When Father Campbell, an Irish priest living in Tema (a community outside Accra) started this Leper Colony, it was a safe haven for them, a place they could be and feel welcomed and loved. It was a place they could be free. They are each others family now.

Agri (eh-GREE) and Adobia (Ah-doe-BEE-ah) were two of the people we talked to the most. I wanted Agri to be my uncle; he had a huge, jolly smile that was beaming the entire time we were there. Adobia had been there the longest and had helped to search out other lepers and bring them back to the community. Everyone we visited expressed their thanks and their blessing. They could not believe that we were foreign students and had taken the time to come and talk with them. We assured them it was them who was doing an enormous good by taking the time to talk with us and share their stories they were changing our lives.

It was so appropriate that I was able to spend my Easter morning with these truly Easter people – they had been given another chance at life and were embracing it to the fullest extent. I want to live my life more like them.

It was a wonderful experience and clearly this is just a glimpse at my emotions for the day. I hope I’m able to tell you all more about it in person.

love