We Lepers

In 1873, a thirty-three-year-old Belgian priest named Damien de Veuster stepped off a boat onto the rocky shore of Molokai, Hawaii. He had volunteered to serve at Kalaupapa, the isolated leper colony where the Hawaiian government sent those afflicted with Hansen's disease to live — and die — far from everyone they loved. For sixteen years, Father Damien bandaged wounds, built homes, dug graves, and shared meals with people the world had abandoned.…