In 1974 a leper hospital was erected in Chengizkhanpet, South India. The Gladys Schumacher Memorial Leprosy Hospital located on a sixty-five -acre complex. Three wings are completed where 450 to 500 patients are being cared for. Our goal is a four-wing hospital that can serve 2,000 patients. A city of hope with 200 lovely homes for the patients, showers, toilets, and a beautiful chapel with their own pastor.

The sixty-five-acre complex, with assistance form the doctors and nurses, is successful in its objectives of rehabilitation. The patients love to work in the flourishing vegetable gardens, the small crops of rice, the fruit orchards and various other crops; plus raising water buffalo and goats as well as learning useful skills all under the loving guidance of the Director, Jesse Barnabas.

There are diseases which are contagious, infectious, epidemic and endemic. There are other diseases which have their home in the human body itself and show themselves when times are favorable for them to burst out and attack mercilessly. No human disease in addition to its intrinsic and inherent capacity to cause pain and suffering has a number of attendent handicaps and associated man-made causes of alienation, ostracism, extreme disproportionate mental suffering and reckless abandon as leprosy

Leprosy is a malady which is looked upon by most as a curse, as incurable, as loathsome, as ugly, as dreaded, highly infectious, as a result of some deadly past sin. The social stigma which is attached to it by the ignorant as well as the educated people is still so persistent that even the nearest and dearest of kin are unwilling to entertain their own leprosy patients in the household. He is an untouchable, a social outcast in the cruelest sense imaginable. The disease often brings in its wake ugly deformities, especially of the extremities of hands, feet, of the nose, and the face. The disease has its long and torturous history. Hansen's disease need not be a killer -- not even a crippler -- if diagnosed and treated in the early stages. Little wonder the leprosy patients become emotionally unbalanced. For most, the diagnosis means mountains of unsolved problems, mixed with prejudices, false knowledge, fears and insecurity. The patient reacts to this shock violently, whether it is outward or hidden. The depressed patient in most cases has guilt feelings which he cannot overcome. He is fully aware of the changes that gradually narrow his life. Unhappiness prevails in his life and spreads to his family. The disease has made him ugly, but we believe that ugly can be beautiful when the right ingredients are combined. Love, patience, kindness, understanding and giving life meaning is so important and necessary. To restore health, dignity and purpose of life is the goal before us. Our noblest actions are undoubtedly those that seek to remove all suffering from human life and point them to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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