The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do

A friend loaned me The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do several weeks ago, since one of the guest speakers at our church's missions conference was going to be Deborah Dortzbach, the co-author of the book. She's a director (the director?) for World Relief's AIDS program. The book is about how we, each of us, need to face the reality of the AIDS epidemic that's sweeping the world, and begin to reach out and do something. It's taken me far too long to start, partly because I've been busy and partly because getting myself to start a non-fiction book (even if it's something I'm really interested in) is like pulling teeth.

But it's going to be hard to put down now. I'm only taking a break to blog about, because it feels to pressing, the need is too immediate, to wait. Here are some quotes from the first two chapters that have struck home to me.

The total number of people living with HIV is nearly forty million and rising, double the number ten years ago. In 2005, 2.8 million people died of AIDS, half a million if them were children under fifteen. Nearly eight thousand people die each die as a result of the AIDS epidemic...By 2010, 25 million children will have been orphaned by AIDS.

And all this in spite of the fact that in the past twenty-five years more resources of time, skill and brainpower have been spent on AIDS than on any other illness in history. In that short time, HIV has spread to every country in the world...

The book has lots of real-life stories of people facing AIDS, whether dealing with their own sickness or that of a family member - or just helping someone who needs another person there to help them.

My name is Nsengiyumva Fidele. I am forty-eight years old, and I have five children. I learned I was HIV positive in July of 2002. I was full of fear and sorrow. After two weeks I made the decision to start an HIV/AIDS program in my church to help those who are not HIV positive to protect themselves, and to help those who are positive to deal with it well. I went to the leaders of the Friends Church. They told me that they had been praying about this for some time, but they didn't have anyone who could start this ministry. The church leaders and I saw that this was now the Lord's will.

After going to the second training [with Word Relief], I found that I could do nothing but tell my story to others in my church. I wanted my story to help stop the stigma and shame that was common in many churches. I also wanted people to protect themselves from AIDS. I continued sharing my story openly in many other places in the country, and now we have many different associations for people living with AIDS.

The purpose I now have is to help church leaders who are HIV positive to be open about it, because they are good vehicles of hope to the community. I now have hope...

For me, living with AIDS is the path through which God has chosen to use me. It's true, in my blood there is the AIDS virus, but there is also the blood of Jesus. I trust and do not doubt that Jesus' blood in me has more power than that of the AIDS virus. So I am not defeated by this virus. I stand firmly on God's word from Psalms 118:17, "I will not die but live [eternally], and proclaim what the Lord has done."