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The Happiness of Spiritually Healed Lepers

TO MOST persons the thought of being afflicted with leprosy presents one of the worst fates imaginable. It often means segregation in a leper colony for many years and may even result in the gradual wasting away of one’s nose, fingers, etc., accompanied with horrible disfigurement. Yet the value, power and beauty of the truth of Jehovah God’s Word is so manifest that lepers who become spiritually healed by gaining an understanding and appreciation of it are far happier than any lepers could possibly be who have received only physical healing. Proof of this is seen by the zeal with which they spread spiritual healing to others.

A case in point are the witnesses of Jehovah residing in the Luapala Leper Settlement, situated on the Luapala River in Northern Rhodesia, in south-central Africa. Scattered among its many acres are the houses of its five hundred inmates, various administration offices and clinics, as well as houses of the large staff of workers. In this settlement, owing to the zeal of the witnesses and Jehovah’s blessing upon their efforts, one out of twenty is enjoying the happiness of spiritual healing.

Recently the local congregation received permission to give a public lecture and show the film “The Happiness of the New World Society” in this settlement. The witnesses in it at once got busy, their affliction not deterring their zeal one bit. They fenced off a large playing field, changed an ugly towering anthill in it to an imposing platform, erected accommodations to seat four hundred and then invited one and all to come.

For the afternoon public lecture the surprising number of 363 turned out. This obviously was in striking contrast with the total of six that attended a religious service across the way that was being conducted in a dead language. Excitement among the witnesses ran high. If that many came to hear the Bible lecture, how many would come to see the Society’s film in the evening? Almost three times as many, packing out the enclosure! Yes, a count showed that almost a thousand, 997 to be exact, attended from the settlement and surrounding district. What rejoicing there was among the witnesses in the Luapala Settlement that night! And so happy in spite of their being lepers!