26MarApr05FromHorrorToHope

FROM How the church can offer help and healing to Africa's AIDS victims

HORROR TO HOPE

BY DEBBIE MEROFF

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROSEMARY HACK

David Livingstone called it “the most wonderful sight that I have witnessed in Africa.”

Watching the spray turn into double rainbows above Victoria Falls, I understood the thrill he must have felt as the first European to set eyes on this marvelous spectacle of nature.

But what, I wondered, would the great explorer have classed as “the most terrible” thing he had witnessed in Africa? Could

anything possibly surpass the killing fields I had confronted during the few weeks I was there? For the enemy devastating this continent has no respect for age, race, or borders—and it seems unstoppable.

I travelled to Africa last August at the request of Operation Mobilization’s founder and director of special projects, George Verwer. OM is an international, interdenominational mission

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with 3,500 men and women working in 90 countries and on two ships. As a journalist, I was to conduct a fact-finding survey to discover where and how Verwer could best channel resources to battle the pandemic of AIDS.The survey would include five of the hardest-hit countries on the globe: Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

Over the next four weeks and 4,000 miles on the road, another OM employee, Rosemary Hack, and I visited scores of hospitals, orphanages, churches, missions, and other agencies.

The statistics we heard were staggering, but worse than the numbers were the stories of the people we encountered, face to face, day after day.

DECIMATING A GENERATION Approximately 40 million people on our planet are now HIVpositive.Another 24 million have already died from AIDS and the diseases that go with it. Still, the plague is highly underestimated. Because symptoms may not appear for years, this is a disease that is easy to ignore or deny.Yet all the while this deadly infection continues its silent spread. In South Africa white people tend to call it a black man’s disease. In the United States it is often considered a homosexual problem. Such assumptions are not only wrong, they are dangerous, preventing any possibility of getting the disease under control.

Most deaths have occurred among the young and middleaged—heads of families and wage earners—with devastating social and economic results. Consider the fact that the disease has globally claimed 7 million farmers since 1985 and that in some nations teachers are dying faster than new ones can be trained.

As increasing numbers of families are fragmented by parent deaths, the elderly have had to step in to raise their grandchildren, if they are able. Older orphaned children often become heads of households, responsible for younger brothers and sisters. Children without any support move to the streets. All are candidates for abuse.

The director of the Lubasi Home in Livingstone, Zambia (www.lubasi.org ), told us that even some of the youngest boys and girls they rescue are infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Girls are especially vulnerable: It is commonly acknowledged that witch doctors advise men that sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS.This may explain why South Africa has one of the highest incidents of rape in the world.

We met ordinary individuals taking in children, simply because they felt they had to get them off the street. Near Durban, South Africa, elderly Zulu Pastor Isaac Mohlakwana and his wife, Christine, are caring for 31 children. In spite of receiving more hindrance than help from the government and managing exclusively on church donations, Khulani Haven, as they now call their home, is a happy place (see www.hopeforaids.org).

In Zambia,World Vision International’s HIV Hope Initiative focuses on prevention, care (particularly for vulnerable children), and advocacy

South Africans Gerald and Retha Venter and their family are committed Christians living next to a township that has an HIV-positive rate of about 65 percent.With the help of volunteers, the Venters’ Shakashead Ministries runs a daily feeding program for 250 orphans.The Chara family in Livingstone, Zambia, has rescued 50 children from the streets and provides a loving Christian environment. But while such efforts help, they are not the answer.The problem is just too big. How do you build enough orphanages for 12 million children? Or enough hospitals to care for all who are ill?

The Masoyi Home-Based Care Project in White River, South Africa, demonstrates one option. Christian founders George and Carolyn Snyman have organised community volunteers who successfully oversee the clothing, feeding, and schooling of 1,700 nearby orphans who live in their own homes.Volunteer nurses also care for 600 HIV-positive sufferers at home.The project is a model that has already been duplicated in Botswana.

MOTHER TO CHILD The stigma of being infectious is so great that many people prefer suicide to living with the disease. Others refuse testing or, if tested positive, refuse treatment if it means people will find out.

Juliet Mweetwa, a young mother of two living in Kalomo, Zambia, is a rare exception. Some time after her husband deserted her she found out that she was HIV-positive.

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Although her husband had known he was infectious, he had continued for years to pass the disease on to others before dying himself. Juliet seriously considered suicide but, thanks to a supportive pastor, chose instead to make her condition known. Now, through her courageous faith, God is using her to give hope to others.

Without such openness, mother-to-child transmission will continue to be a massive problem. I found heartbreaking evidence in facilities like the Mohau Centre, near Pretoria.

The children living here have all been either infected or affected. Those who are most ill have a chance as long as they can be treated with anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, only about 7 percent of all those who need ARVs have access to them. One wing houses a hospice for dying children. Here a mother sits quietly beside her newborn, tubes attached to all parts of his tiny body. Another little one wails from a nearby crib, alone and uncomforted. Some parents, the director tells us, simply abandon their children, finding it easier simply to pretend they do not exist.

OM workers Brian and Vanessa Warden volunteered at the Mohau Centre and decided to adopt a little boy there.The Wardens knew that Vincent didn’t have long to live, but believed they could at least give one child the security of a caring family.

Last summer, after Vincent’s death, they joined OM in Zimbabwe and immediately began working with an orphan project in Banket. Vanessa found herself giving Vincent’s clothes to another little boy who had been abandoned in a cave when he was 2 weeks old.The Wardens now dream of starting an orphanage in Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean nurse Vicky Graham valiantly continues her lone ministry among the forgotten Tonga tribe in the northwest.Vicky estimates that 50 to 60 percent of this tribe are HIV-positive. Sadly, there is little she can do to treat it or even halt its spread. Even if ARVs were available, the drugs are toxic and must be closely supervised lest they do more harm than good. So Vicky does her best in her daily clinics to fight the witchcraft, immorality, and superstition that have so long dominated Tonga life, and by her own example offers an alternative lifestyle in Christ.

THE FACE OF AIDS Like most people, I had harbored many misconceptions about HIV and AIDS. But travelling through Africa I learned that it isn’t so easy to assign “guilty” or “innocent” labels to afflicted people. I began to see that caring about individuals and condoning whatever wrong they may have done are two very different things. Most profoundly, I discovered that statistics about infected millions mean little until you look into the face of just one person who is dying without hope.

Near the end of our trip I walked into a tiny grass hut in an isolated village in Zimbabwe.A young man was lying inside with only his elderly mother to tend him. A glance at his medical record told me he had full-blown AIDS. He had been lying in that bed for a whole year, dying by inches, with no treatment or medicine to ease his torment.

Suddenly it didn’t matter to me how that young man had contracted AIDS. I only knew in that moment what Jesus would do—put his arms around him and love that soul into God’s kingdom.

The bottom line is that everyone who has AIDS, regardless of whether they have access to drugs, is going to die.

There is no cure. Neither is there any vaccine to prevent it.

And with average life spans shrinking to only 34 years in countries like Zimbabwe and Zambia, the time left to share the good news of salvation is growing alarmingly short.

Scripture Union,World Vision, and Focus on the Family are just three major organizations making an enormous contribution in the area of AIDS education and prevention.

Some excellent material is available in schools, although most is in English and resources are also needed in local languages.

The Pan-African Christian AIDS Network (PACANET), based in Gabarone, Botswana, is putting together a database of all Christian organizations and churches involved in HIV/ AIDS.

In a tiny grass hut in an isolated village in Zimbabwe, a young man dies slowly from AIDS, with only his elderly mother to tend him and no medicine to ease his torment.

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Located in a South African township that has an HIV-positive rate of about 65 percent, Shakashead Ministries runs a daily feeding program for 250 orphans.

2005 (see www.who.int/3by5/about/en). Right now this program has been stalled by insufficient funding.

• Cotrimoxazole is a low-cost antibiotic that has proven highly effective for the treatment and prevention of pneumocystis pneumonia, often related to HIV. It also offers protection against other infections in children. Even in places that have increasing access to anti-retroviral treatment, cotrimoxazole may be a lifesaver for children born to HIV-infected mothers in settings where their status cannot be reliably confirmed in the first 18 months of life.

• In January 2005 a bill was reintroduced to Congress to provide community care, education, and medical services to orphans and vulnerable children.This bill narrowly missed approval last year and urgently needs to be passed.

Write or call your state senator and representative, asking them to support the Assistance for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act, the 3 by 5 Initiative, and wider availability of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis.

The 2006 budget is being developed right now, and there is danger of reduction in global AIDS funding and research.

For updates, see http://takeaction.stopglobalaids.org.

Since 2002 they have served as facilitators, sharing information, mobilizing resources, and establishing helpful links.

But HIV and AIDS aren’t just Africa’s problems. The United States has already lost a million people—20 times the number of fatalities in the Vietnam War. Predictions see deaths in Asia—particularly in China and India—soon outstripping those in Africa. With another 14,000 people worldwide being infected every day—and nearly six dying every minute—the pandemic is sooner or later going to touch us all.

So far, churches have been less than a driving force in the fight against AIDS. In fact, discrimination within the church often makes it the last place many people go for help. Yet God longs for his people to be on the forefront of raising awareness, teaching prevention, and easing the suffering.We can all do something. But the greatest service any of us can give infected men, women, and children is to introduce them to the hope that is in Jesus Christ—before it’s too late. ■

RAISE AWARENESS • Educate members of your church about the true dimensions of the disease and provide fact sheets such as those found at www.globalchange.com/craids.htm or www.unaids. org/bangkok2004/factsheets.html. Suggest the observance of WORLD AIDS DAY next December 1 to highlight the millions affected by the pandemic, along with taking a special offering to support relevant ministries.

• Promote other events, like HIV-Vaccine Awareness Day (May 18), which encourages research toward the creation Continued on page 27.

A veteran journalist based in London, England, Maine-native Debbie Meroff has travelled to 90 countries and published six books and scores of articles about God's people worldwide.

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT • The “3 by 5 Initiative” was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS, targeting treatment for 3 million people in developing countries by the end of

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knew more than enough women who were eager to move in.

PACT envisions expanding the original hospice from 10 to 50 beds by 2007.They recently opened a separate hospice for children with the virus. Many of the women who came to the hospice have children, some infected, others not. Some of these children are now orphans. Because of the difficulty of enrolling these children in a regular school, PACT also runs a school within the children’s hospice. Children of HIV/AIDSinfected parents are welcome in very few places, and they often live on street pavements, at bus shelters, and on railway station platforms. The PACT team finds out about these children via word of mouth or sometimes by talking to them in the streets and inviting them to live in their hospice.

Although PACT is committed to giving long-term care to the women, they also work to reconcile the women with their families. If the woman is open to reconciliation, the staff members will educate the family about every aspect of the disease and discuss any issues that arise.The reunification process can take anywhere from six months to two years. Once the woman is reunited with her family, PACT remains in contact and continues talking to the family for six months to help them through each step of the process.They have witnessed both successful and unsuccessful efforts at reunification, but since PACT imposes no limit on how long a woman can remain

in the hospice, she is always welcome back should efforts fail to reunite her permanently with her family.

As the women residents pass away, no longer able to battle their disease, Prabhu and the rest of the PACT staff have discovered that the work they have chosen can be heartwrenching. But they have also discovered that life goes on, and not one of them has lost the compassion that first stirred them to extend their hand to those suffering from AIDS. They have truly followed God’s call to reach out to the needy with mercy and provide for their needs.

Uma, whose story began this article, today resides happily at the PACT hospice. She recently attended a Christian discipleship program and has also been trained under experienced schoolteachers. Today she is a teacher at PACT’s school for HIV-positive children. ■

From Horror to Hope, continued from page 23.

• World Vision International’s HIV Hope Initiative focuses on prevention, care (particularly for vulnerable children), and advocacy (www.wvi.org/wvi/aids/global_aids.htm).

• Scripture Union has developed a wide range of posters, videos, booklets, and courses that are being used extensively in schools across Africa to fight the spread of AIDS (www.su-international.org).

PACT is a ministry of YWAM (Youth With A Mission). An international, interdenominational mission,YWAM was founded in India in August 1982.YWAM Chennai is committed to meeting the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of the city’s residents through a variety of multifaceted ministries.

To learn more about this organization, visit www.ywam.org.

Sonya Svoboda is a freelance writer based in Chennai, India.

of a vaccine (for further information and a publicity tool kit go to www.aidsinfo.nih.gov/other/vaccineday2004.asp) and National HIV-Testing Day (June 27), which encourages people at risk to receive voluntary HIV counselling and testing (www.hivtest.org).

• Form a “He Intends Victory (HIV)” chapter with your church to support outreach opportunities and promote a spiritual awakening within the HIV/AIDS community (www.heintendsvictory.com).

VOLUNTEER You don’t have to go to Africa to find people affected by AIDS. In some of our towns and cities you may be the only one to visit a person whose friends and family have deserted him.

Showing Christ’s love through practical help like cooking a meal, cleaning, or doing errands, coupled with a willingness to pray and listen, is the best way to provide a lifeline.

Most mission agencies are glad to accept short-term volunteers overseas. Opportunities range from medical teams to hands-on help for children orphaned by AIDS. Act4Africa invites people to join three-week summer teams that use the performing arts to promote HIV/AIDs awareness and extend God’s kingdom (admin@act4africa.co.uk). Check out other openings at www.globalmission.org, www.volunteer.org.nz, or www.christianvocations.org.

GET BEHIND OTHER MINISTRY EFFORTS Identify Christian agencies and individuals that are effectively fighting HIV/AIDS, or ministering to sufferers, and support them financially. Here are just a few: • ACET—AIDS Care, Education, and Training International —is an alliance of organizations founded by Christian doctor Patrick Dixon that networks to provide resources and funding for worthwhile projects in a number of countries (www.acet-international.com).

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