Nursing student spends summer working with lepers and orphans

[ Originally published on: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 ]

GREENFIELD -- Local nursing student Autumn McGuffey said her life will never be the same and it's all because of some lepers and orphans living across the world.

''I was excited, scared, lonely and very happy for two months this summer,'' said McGuffey, who traveled to India on an eight-week mission with Adventures in Missions, a religious-based organization that works with the poor around the world.

McGuffey, who is a second-year nursing student at Greenfield Community College, said she loved and disliked the people there and was in awe of their will to survive.

''They're so poor,'' she said. ''But boy, do they have passion.''

McGuffey spent most days working in an orphanage, where children there, who were between the ages of 3 and 12, had either lost their parents or were abandoned by them. Two days a week she worked in a leper colony on the outskirts of town.

''I'd go back and forth between 'Thank goodness I only have one more week to go,' and, 'Darn, we're leaving so soon,''' said McGuffey.

She said temperatures never got much below 120 degrees.

''We looked forward to the two monsoons that came through -- everyone would be dancing in the rain,'' she said. ''At night, we'd wet our sheets in the shower so we could fall asleep. It was so hot all of the time.''

McGuffey listened to rabid dogs fight outside the two-story house she stayed in and was grateful each night that she'd received rabies shots before she left home.

She was followed by beggars, and orphans stole her heart.

In the leper colony, she met entire families that lived in one-room homes.

''They were the poorest and most generous people I've ever met,'' said McGuffey. ''They have nothing, but they're willing to share it with you. I've never experienced such amazing hearts.''

 

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