Transmitting Hope in an HIV Positive World
In spite of HIV having plateaued and the number of new infections having leveled off, each day over 5,000 people still die of AIDS related causes and 7,000 are newly infected, with just 3,000 starting HIV treatment. Well over 25 years into the pandemic the task is still daunting.
However, when I look at HIV I don’t see numbers, I see faces. Don’t get me wrong, statistics are important, but it’s not only about statistics.
I remember visiting a hospital in Asia, standing at the end of a bed of a man dying of AIDS. He was emaciated, clearly he didn’t have long left. I looked into his eyes, and reached out to touch him.
He had a look of abject terror and desperation, tinged with an almost pathetic gratitude that someone would reach out to him. He was miles from home, had no visitors and was treated like a pariah.
My co-worker, who spoke the local language, sat and said some words to him. I think he may have prayed for him–the man visibly relaxed.
I walked away from that encounter realising that to that man it didn’t matter if he was one in ten, or one in a million HIV positive people, he was sick, dying, rejected. He was created in the image of God as much as you or I and equally precious to God.
We were able to transmit a little bit of hope to him that day. I wish we could have done more.
OM has been seeking to Transmit Hope in the midst of this pandemic for a little over three years now. God has blessed our endeavors.
Going Deeper
I believe that God is challenging OM to go deeper in the whole area of HIV and AIDS. These are some of the areas we are focussing on and would like to further scale up:
Training community leaders
I love this picture because this training is so grassroots and so low-tech. It is in Nepal, in a village church. Many of the men from this area go to India as migrant labourers, and the women are at high risk of being trafficked into India as sex-workers.
After this workshop they will understand some of the risks they will face as migrant labourers and they will know what to look out for if people come round offering “jobs” for their sisters and daughters in India (50% of the Nepali girls who are trafficked to Mumbai as sex-workers end up with HIV infection).
However people can’t do this sort of training unless they themselves are trained. We want our personnel to give correct information in a way that people will understand. So we invest a lot of time and energy into training facilitators.
Those who are trained as facilitators are usually the ones who then go on to start HIV ministries around the world.
One of those who recently attended was a young man who is himself HIV positive. He said, “During this week God said to me ‘When you found out you were HIV positive the devil said to you - this is the end’. But I am telling you this is the beginning.”
Providing medical assistance and giving practical help to those in need
In Nepal people living with HIV often end up migrating to the city for treatment and living in poverty, not being able to find work and getting even sicker. They don’t know where to go for medication, don’t know their rights and don’t have anyone to speak up for them. We help such people access care and join the HIV support group.
By the time you read this we will have conducted our first small business training for the Nepal HIV support group, empowering them to help themselves.
Networking with like-minded organisations
We can’t do it alone. One of many areas in which partner with others is reaching out to girls who are victims of human trafficking.
Lata* is a sex-worker in Singapore where we partner with an organisation that has clinics which are accessible to Migrant Labourers and Sex-Workers. Both at high risk of HIV.
When I met Lata she had been on the streets one week, was clearly terrified–not allowed to leave the corner she stood on, not even to go one block to the clinic.
In Austria OMers join with a partner ministry in reaching out to girls in the sex-industry. I have stood on the streets of Vienna and prayed with Christian girls who have been prostituted into this work.
They thought they were going to Europe to be nanny’s or secretaries. When they refuse to do sex-work they are beaten and raped into submission. These girls are at very high risk of HIV infection as are all victims of human trafficking.
Educating and mentoring youth to make good choices
Last Christmas Nico, the leader of OM South Africa’s HIV and AIDS ministry, received a phone call from a young girl. She wanted him to know that she was keeping the pledge of sexual abstinence until marriage, even though it was hard.
She was part of a programme in which a team visited her class every week and taught life-skills.
Others are not so fortunate, “I would love to be abstinent,” one teen said, “but I know that when I get home my uncle will be there ready to rape me”.
Sexual abstinence is not a one off decision, neither is it an easy choice and for some people it is just about impossible.
Helping orphans and vulnerable children
If a girl is able to read, her children will be 50% more likely to live beyond 5 years of age.
Mbali* is a 9 year old girl who attends OM South Africa’s after school programme for orphans and vulnerable children. The children, who are identified by the local school as being at risk, get a good meal, help with their studies and some much needed one on one attention.
Mbali is a tiny slip of a girl with a big smile that hides a lot of pain. The team learnt that her mother was very sick–presumably with AIDS, and they promised to visit her. A few days after they made that promise her mother died, and with her Mbali’s hope.
Keeping the promise became even more important.
They drove through the informal settlement looking for the tiny metal shack where she lives, it was hard to find, but suddenly, they saw her, sitting outside a hut with her baby sister sitting on her lap. Her face lit up when she saw the team.
Then the tears flowed, she had just lost her only remaining parent, enduring a grief that it is hard to imagine–but that one visit was enough to transmit hope to Mbali, assuring her that she was important, that she could indeed have hope for the future and that there were people who were going to be there for her.
Katy* is a small Nepali girl who was thrown out of school when the teachers found out she is HIV positive. The team managed to get her into another school and we are now funding 12 children, who are either infected or affected by HIV, to complete primary school, giving them hope for the future.
New Developments
An exciting recent development has been the start of an HIV and AIDS ministry in Russia. Russia is the country with the fastest growing HIV rate in the world today.
The ministry is headed up by Jenya, a former drug addict who gave his life to Christ in a Christian rehabilitation centre. He and his wife Julia lead a team which visits schools in Siberia giving education about HIV and AIDS, drug addiction, abortion and the dangers of promiscuity.
They write, “We found out that there are people in our church already infected with HIV, and these people are our brothers, sisters, and close friends.
“Schools were ready and even excited to receive our team, they realised that students were lacking this information (about HIV and AIDS). To this day, over 1,800 young people have heard our lectures.
“As well as going round schools, we run seminars on drug and alcoholic abuse in the Christian rehabilitation centres in Novosibirsk, and seminars on how to counsel and help those diagnosed with HIV.
“In the autumn of 2009 we organised our first conference for Christians in Siberia who are involved in this ministry. We also organised training for the students going through the OM Discipleship Centre.
“We have set up a support group for those suffering with HIV, where they can find support and understanding.”
Hope is something that we often take for granted and don’t miss it till it is gone. This is just a glance at some of the lives and various ways that God is using OM to Transmit Hope in the midst of the HIV and AIDS pandemic.
*Names changed
Credit: OM International · © 2010
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