Yunnan Leprosy Village: Leprosy Village Visit in March

People with leprosy are sent to isolated villages where they are abandoned and forgotten by society.The Shalom Leprosy Compassion Ministry has a special place in its heart for these people and organizes groups of volunteers to travel to villages plagued with leprosy in order to provide medical, living, and psychological assistance. The Shalom Leprosy Compassion Ministry is located in Kunming, Yunnan.

Towing truck towed vehicle to Kunming

Shu-Fang Zhang, the injured, examined and treated by Chinese medicine hospital in Kunming

March 2015 is a month not easy to forget for Shalom volunteers.  Our vehicle visiting leprosy village involved in an accident during Chinese New Year.  Volunteer Ping Liang and her family helped treat patient Shu-Fang Zhang.  It was somehow troublesome due to the involvement  of peoples injured in the accident.   Even under this uneasy circumstance, Shalom still organized two visits to leprosy villages.  In addition, Shalom took Mr. Wu from YangJuanGou rehabilitation village in YiLiang county to city Kunming for check-up and treatment.  Below is a set of photos showing March activities by Shalom:

1, Treatment of the injured and vehicle repair: Since LiSu tribe autonomous prefecture along NuJiang river of Yunnan province is one of the most remote and under-developed prefecture,  the only help we can get is from volunteers to transfer the injured and vehicle to the city of Kunming.

2,  While managing issues related to car incident, Shalom volunteers received patients Ping-Shi Wu, Mrs Lee and her daughter from YiLiang county in Ping Liang’s home. Their illness needs help from Ping Liang. Ping Liang invited experts to diagnose them and filled prescriptions for them.

3, Visit SweiGou rehabilitation village in KunSan town, XinDian county: After checking out hospital for Shu-Fang Zhang, volunteers of Shalom and Ping Liang arranged the visit of another rehabilitation village.  International school principle Maria, our long time friend of leprosy patients, hopes Shalom can take them to SweiGou rehabilitation village in KunSan town, XinDian county, a more remote leprosy village with more severe poverty, badly in need of help.

On March 29, very early in the morning, we took off from Kunming with school principle Maria and 16 volunteers in 3 vehicles (Shalom rented a mini van). The highway from Kunming to SongMing was closed for maintenance.  We had no choice but to take an old, narrow road as detour.  

After some bumpy, dangerous ride, we arrived KungSan town at noon. Maria, volunteers and local villagers had lunch together and talked over the lunch. After taking a short break after lunch at KungSan town, we continued along a rural dirt road into the SweiGou rehabilitation village and arrived around 2pm.

For the visit of SweiGou rehabilitation village in March, Shalom brought to villagers 30 quilts, 30 bags of cloth detergent and other household items.  Had good sharing and communication with villagers.  Volunteers sincerely wished these villagers good health and joyful life.  Villagers also wished our volunteers success at work and happy family life.   Around 5pm, volunteers reluctantly bid farewell and headed back to Kunming.  Even though lots of hard work involved, volunteers feel very proud and fortunate that they can bring loving care to SweiGou rehabilitation village.

In April, Shalom will continue to carry out its routine visits to leprosy villages.  With the support of Transparent Fish Foundation, Shalom pledges its best efforts to do a good job for those in rehabilitation leprosy villages. 

Original article written by Ping Liang, translated by Joe Hsu, edited by Yanyan Zhang

Quilts and other gifts brought over by volunteers to SweiGou rehabilitation village

Volunteer doctor did check-ups for villagers and provided them with medicine. In this remote area, doctor and medicine are the most needed.