Sr. Flora Phwandaphwanda, MMM

During our Lenten visit to the leprosy centre in Agok, together with the priests and religious of the Catholic Diocese of Wau, South Sudan, I met “Samuel,” whose story has stayed with me. 

In his words, he had been a soldier in Ethiopia before he became sick, and everything changed. The disease did not only affect his body, it stripped him of belonging. No one wanted to come near him. Even his own family rejected him. In that loneliness, he chose to return to South Sudan his home country, setting out on a journey that seemed almost impossible. But he persevered. At one point, he threw away his gun. It had become useless. In that moment, it was as though he was laying down not just a weapon, but an old life — choosing survival, choosing hope. 

He walked through the bush with no food. Hunger pressed upon him. Then he came across an animal and managed to kill it, yet he had no fire to cook it. So, he ate only what he could, the liver, just enough to keep going. 

Throughout the journey, he survived on the kindness of strangers: food, water, milk, offered by people who owed him nothing. Each act of help became a sign that God had not abandoned him. Finally, he reached Agok. What he found there was more than a place, it was a family. Though cast out, he was now welcomed. 

Visits like this one to Agok remind us that so much of our vocation as Medical Missionaries of Mary is not about the places we run, but the people we choose to walk alongside, even, and especially, in places that are not our own. We go to be present: to sit with those the world has cast out, and to remind them, as Samuel discovered, that welcome is still possible.  

Stories like Samuel’s also remind us that this mission is never carried out alone. It is made possible through the generosity of those who support our work and walk alongside us. Your partnership enables us to be present in places of suffering, to witness stories of hope and to continue sharing Christ’s healing love across borders.