The Miracle of Molokai

Twelve-year-old Margaret Kaupuni had just danced before Honolulu's 1934 May Queen. As she left the steps a health inspector grabbed her wrist. "You are a leper, child, and you will come with me." At the leper receiving station she was positively diagnosed and sent to Kalaupapa, the leprosy settlement on Molokai. On that lonely prison island for thirty-four years, Margaret watched her dreams die and her own body scar and shrink from the disease. There her twenty-two-year-old sister, another patient, died in the pounding surf. There, over the decades, Margaret watched her three afflicted husbands die. There her newborn children were taken from her arms and shipped to foster homes on Oahu. There she dressed the sores of the living and closed the eyes of the deformed victims of a disease the ancient Egyptians called "death before death." Then in 1969, her leprosy arrested at long last, Margaret was released from Molokai and moved into a small one room apartment in the high rise slums of Honolulu. Once again surrounded by poverty and despair Margaret dreamed a new dream. She would spend the rest of her life caring for her fellow outcasts in the Oahu Towers. This is the inspiring true story of Margaret the Miracle of Molokai who faced suffering most of us can't even imagine however instead of giving way to grief and anger Margaret spent the rest of her life relieving the suffering of others. Let Margaret's story give you strength to face your own suffering and at the same time plant a new dream in your heart.