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Aug 1, 2007

"Listen. In every office you hear the threads of love and joy and fear and guilt, the cries for celebration and reassurance, and somehow you know that connecting those threads is what you are supposed to do and business takes care of itself." --James Autry

Leprosy and a Mother's Love

On her first night in India, Becky Douglas lay awake thinking about beggars. As she tossed and turned that night, Douglas prayed. "'I'm just a housewife. Tell me what I should do.' And the thought came to me: 'You can at least look at them. You can at least acknowledge that they're suffering.' And the next day I did." Six years later, Douglas is a veteran activist fighting to end leprosy in India. The organization she started around her kitchen table now works with 20,000 people who live in 45 leprosy colonies, providing them with microloans, mobile health clinics and schools. It was the death of her oldest daughter, Amber, that started it all. When Douglas was cleaning out her daughter's dorm room she discovered that Amber had been sending part of her college money to orphans in India.