It’s a Smaller World After All
Two years after Outreach published its first report on the global AIDS pandemic, we revisit how American churches are making a difference in the lives of their global neighbors. Is there still a need? What has changed? And why do these church leaders say joining the fight against HIV/AIDS is the best thing they’ve ever done for the Kingdom and for themselves?
by Lynne Marian and Mary Elizabeth Hopkins
The sun-baked villages of southern Africa and the teeming alleys of urban India—in 2004, Outreach was privileged to leave the suburban confines of our San Diego offices and spend a few weeks experiencing life among the people of these distant, global communities.
There, we saw the face of the AIDS pandemic—its devastation—but also the hope and dignity that still lives in the hearts of its survivors.
There, we walked alongside American church leaders as they came to realize that they, too, were part of the global AIDS community. And while we may not have lost our lives, or our loved ones to this disease, together we came to understand our role and the heart of God for these people.
We shared this journey in our Sept./Oct. 2004 cover story, “My Neighbor Has AIDS.” Today, two years later—and 25 years since AIDS was first diagnosed—we revisit some of the same pastors and churches we met then, as well as a few others, to hear how these Christians have become Christ’s hands and feet in the AIDS Crisis—and how it has transformed them forever.
Once we were ignorant. But now we know. And because we know, we all have a responsibility.
A Splash in the Bucket
In 2002, according to a World Vision/Barna Research poll, only 3% of American Christians (and one can conjecture, churches) were willing to offer financial relief to support children affected by the AIDS crisis. By 2004, that number had climbed to 17%. Even since then, the momentum among U.S. Christian churches has increased. And while it is still only a splash in the bucket—an estimated 40 million people worldwide are currently living with AIDS—today more churches than ever before are taking steps of compassion, both large and small.
“Many churches are seeking ways to serve those domestically who have been impacted or infected with the virus, while others are partnering with indigenous, church-based or development organizations,” says Steve Haas, vice president of World Vision, the world’s largest Christian relief agency.
Congregations such as Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., now hold conferences where hundreds, even thousands, of church leaders have been inspired and challenged to champion the cause of AIDS relief.
And more churches are forming HIV/AIDS ministries, as well as planning specific churchwide efforts that give their congregations and communities action points for loving their overseas neighbors living with AIDS.
In April, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, Calif., hosted its first-ever Compassion Weekend. In addition to serving its local community, the church worked with World Vision to assemble 7,500 AIDS Caregiver Kits (including basic and scarce supplies like washcloths, latex gloves and cotton balls) that were packaged and shipped to community caregivers in African countries with a high prevalence of AIDS. Some 33,000 rural Africans are already enrolled in the program. The kits equip these caregivers who provide medication, supplies and emotional support to area families affected by HIV or AIDS. Menlo Park Presbyterian plans to gather again on World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) to assemble more kits, says Julie Gavrilis, Menlo Park’s director of communications.
AIDS: The Ultimate Platform for Compassion
It has been said that the new apologetic of our faith is not intellectual argumentation, but justice. Compassion and justice are the platforms that our churches will stand on to share the love of Christ in our local communities. No issue in the history of the world has given the Church a greater opportunity to exhibit that justice and compassion than AIDS.
As we said in 2004, we hope that our grandchildren’s history books will read that the tide of the 21st century global AIDS pandemic turned when a multi-national, unified Christian church rose up and addressed the issue.
The stories on the following pages bring you up close and personal to pastors and churches throughout America (Lafayette, La.; Naperville, Ill.; Sumner, Wash.; Otsego, Minn.) that are seeing and learning what it means to share the Gospel with their hurting neighbors in Mozambique, Uganda, Lesotho and Rwanda—and finding their place as global citizens.
A SAFE HAVEN IN NKOBE
A Louisiana church finds its place among Mozambican orphans
President Bush’s 2003 Emergency Plan for AIDS relief supports 15 countries, together representing 50% of HIV infections worldwide. With nearly 500 new infections each day, the African country of Mozambique is among these nations. Of the country’s 19.6 million inhabitants, 1.3 million have HIV—nearly 150,000 of them children. Moreover, 470,000 children have been orphaned by the disease.
Under Bush’s plan, Mozambique will receive $94.4 million by 2006’s end to help fight HIV/AIDS. But Pastor Jay Miller of The Family Church in Lafayette, La. (thefamilychurch.cc), believes this battle will take more than money. Although the church of 1,500 has sponsored summer short-term mission trips throughout the world, the 33-year-old church felt compelled to be part of something with more focus and longevity.
While on a short-term mission trip to Swaziland, Miller met Ben Rodgers, a missionary with Children’s Cup International Relief (childrenscup.org). The organization, founded in 1992 by Dave Ohlerking, brings humanitarian and spiritual aid to children in countries devastated by war, natural disasters and disease.
Miller learned that through Children’s Cup, his church could sponsor a CarePoint, a safe haven for orphans and vulnerable children. Through the CarePoint—be it a school, doctor’s office or even just a central meeting point—Children’s Cup and the church begin to fight AIDS. First, they focus on the necessities—food and water, then medical help, and finally education among the community’s leaders to equip the community to fight AIDS.
“Children’s Cup scours the local areas for people who can continue the work after we’ve gone home, allowing the community to stay involved,” Miller says.
So this July, with a partnership solidified, Miller left his southern Louisiana community and traveled to Mozambique. The Family Church’s CarePoint is in Nkobe, a makeshift settlement of 5,000 people living in “squatters”—shelters made of loose bricks, cardboard, bamboo or sheets of metal. People survive without electricity, homes and, until recently, water. The government-supplied well hadn’t been working; someone had stolen the pump.
To begin its sponsorship, The Family Church helped repair the well. Next, the church will send a long-term brother/sister missionary team in October, as well as a short-term team of about 25 bricklayers and carpenters to build homes. The congregation is beginning to find its place and role as world-class citizens.Kingdom and
PROGRESS IN BUHIMBIA
An Illinois church discovers its Ugandan neighbors
Pastor Greg Wenhold had come to the East African country of Uganda to see firsthand what he’d only heard or read about. Now he was in the village of Buhimbia at a community “goat roast” celebration.
The night swirled with surreal moments. An emotional Wenhold came face-to-face with two of his sponsored children, Richard, 7, and Dalwell, 8—both boys have lost a parent to AIDS. And the evening closed with a drama depicting a Buhimbian man who visited the city, contracted HIV, returned to the village and infected his wife.
For Wenhold, a senior pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Naperville, Ill. (welcomegrowserve.org), both the drama and meeting “his” children left him with a sense of hope for this country that’s finally beginning to see years of AIDS education and attention to health care and poverty pay off. Since 1992, prevalence of HIV/AIDS among Uganda’s 28 million residents has dropped by 50%.
A few days later, Wenhold sat with Margaret, a local woman recently diagnosed as HIV-positive. In the village of 70,000, Margaret helps those newly diagnosed develop a plan for their upcoming care needs. Hearing how she cared for the needs of people like herself crystallized Wenhold’s commitment to engage in the fight against AIDS.
Coming back to his opulent Naperville community, an upscale Chicago suburb, Wenhold was now acutely aware that AIDS was no longer “their problem;” it was also his problem, and it would become Good Shepherd Church’s ongoing mission.
As he painted word pictures of the needs he’d witnessed, the congregation of 4,000 stepped up to sponsor 200 Buhimbian kids.
“Instead of buying more for themselves, our congregation wanted to give to Uganda,” Wenhold says. “And we continue to sponsor children. In the next few years, we think we can at least double what we’re doing now.”
Next March, a group from Good Shepherd will visit Buhimbia to spend time with its sponsored children. Until then, the congregation will be involved in gathering supplies for AIDS caregiver kits and planning a major gift for their Buhimbian neighbors to aid community development.
“Since I went to Buhimbia, I’ve been broken,” Wenhold says. “The idea that God would allow us to use our earthly resources to assist in building His Kingdom is humbling.”
TEACHING MAPOTENG
A Washington church trains pastors in Lesotho
An enclave of South Africa, Lesotho sits at such a high altitude that it has only three fertile planting months each year. But food is not the only necessity that’s hard to come by in this country. Good healthcare is also scarce. About 31% (270,000 people) of the 2.1 million residents of this nation have AIDS. In 2005 alone, some 23,000 people died of the disease, leaving behind more than 73,000 orphans.
For the past two years, Calvary Community Church near Seattle (cccsumner.org) has supported 650 of these children. By partnering with World Vision in May 2004, the 3,000-member, middle-class church committed to help this struggling country by focusing on Mapoteng, a small community sitting in the highlands of northern Lesotho. Honing in on Mapoteng’s littlest, the church created a “Christmas in July” initiative to raise extra money for shoes and coats for their sponsored children. But Calvary’s heart for its global neighbors continues to grow exponentially, says Calvary Pastor Ray Armstrong. Sponsoring children is good, but it’s not enough.
So each year, Calvary volunteers visit Mapoteng to teach HIV/AIDS prevention from a biblical perspective, often speaking at area church services. Calvary has also trained 60-plus under-resourced local church leaders to educate residents about the causes and prevention of HIV and AIDS.
“AIDS breaks God’s heart. I want to let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God,” says Armstrong, who initially was inspired to join the battle by Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan).
“This isn’t about bringing people into our church—it’s about reaching outside the walls,” he says. Armstrong has visions of engaging Seattle’s unchurched in Calvary’s Mapoteng outreach.
“What if we took 50 people from our church and 50 people from our community to Mapoteng to help? Wouldn’t that be cool?” he asks, excited about the potential for eternal impact both locally and across the world.
Until that happens though, the church will continue doing everything it can to revive Mapoteng with food and healthcare. Before the planting season begins this September, Armstrong and the World Vision-motivated community group hope to purchase a tractor for the people of Mapoteng.
“We’re not interested in who gets the credit,” Armstrong says. “We just want to meet the needs, and we’re starting to see the impact of this.” emselves?
MISSION KARABA
A Minnesota community partners for Rwandans
As he stood on a memorial site in February 2004 commemorating the 50,000 Rwandans murdered in one night, Greg Pagh, pastor of Christ Lutheran Church (clcotsego.org) in Otsego, Minn., wept. Twelve years ago in a three-month span, the East African country saw one-eighth of its population slaughtered in a civil war between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes.
“The emotional scars are hard for us to imagine,” Pagh says. “Part of my heart is in Africa.”
More than a decade later, the losses continue, but AIDS is now the instrument of death, striking one out of every seven people in Rwanda; 22,000 of the 250,000 Rwandans with HIV/AIDS are under the age of 16. In the southwestern region of Africa’s most densely populated country sits Karaba, where most of the area’s 100,000 residents now live without running water or electricity.
Realizing the dearth of resources in the war-torn country, Pagh and six other pastors from different churches and denominations in the fast-growing Otsego/Elk River area northwest of Minneapolis have joined the effort to help. After being challenged to fight AIDS by speaker Bruce Wilkinson at the 2003 National Promise Keepers Conference in Phoenix, the Midwest pastors traveled to sub-Saharan Africa with World Vision.
To rise to Wilkinson’s challenge, the Minnesotans developed a community-wide partnership. A few months later, wanting to find a partner community in Africa, four Elk River area pastors, including Pagh, went on another trip to the continent. More than 10 days in Rwanda solidified their choice of Karaba as their Area Development Project.
The experience transformed them, Pagh says, and would begin to do the same for their Minnesotan community. From March to May 2004, Elk River area businesses, schools and government workers developed a strategy to expand the Mission Rwanda Community Partnership. The team challenged—and continues to challenge—every current Elk River area sponsor family to “adopt” one more child.
Two years later, some 500 kids have been sponsored through Mission Rwanda.
The pastors, who often identify themselves as “The Church at Elk River,” have made a 10-year commitment to Karaba.
“God has given us a vision of the day when 2,000 children in Karaba are sponsored by Elk River families,” says Pagh, “and when the community partnership model is shared by cities across America and the world.”
GETTING STARTED
Below is a list of resources—including churches with HIV/AIDS ministries—to educate, challenge and equip your church to be the hands and feet of Christ.
Churches
• Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (mppcfamily.org)
• Saddleback Church (purposedriven.com)
• Healing Place Church (To work with Children’s Cup, e-mail dan.ohlerking@healingplacechurch.org)
Organizations
• World Vision (worldvision.org)
• Children’s Cup International (childrenscup.org)
• The ONE Campaign (one.org)
• Acres of Love (acresoflove.org)
• AIDS Care Fund (aidscarefund.org)
• He Intends Victory (heintendsvictory.org)
• Medical Assistance Programs (map.org)
• Samaritan’s Purse (samaritanspurse.org)
• Save Africa’s Children (saveafricaschildren.org)
Events
• World AIDS day, Dec. 1 (avert.org/worldaid.htm)
• Faith in Action (World Vision/Outreach/Zondervan) (worldvision.org/faithinaction)
• Purpose-Driven Conference: Race Against Time, Nov. 29–Dec. 1 (purposedriven.com)
Books
• The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do by Deborah Dortzbach and W. Meredith Long (InterVarsity)
• The aWAKE Project (W Publishing)
• Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence by Donald E. Messer (Augsburg Fortress)
• When AIDS Comes to Church by William E. Amos Jr. (Westminister/John Knox)
-Outreach magazine, "Features," September/October 2006
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