Colin L. Powell boldly stated, “No war on the face of the world is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic. I was a soldier, but I know of no enemy in war more insidious or vicious than AIDS, an enemy that poses a clear and present danger to the world”. HIV/AIDS has the ability to infect every nation: male, female, young and old, heterosexual and homosexual. It knows no boundaries. What could be greatest tragedy of all is that it is preventable!
For two weeks our group will observe the current HIV/AIDS crisis, encourage relief efforts, and build relationships with those fighting to live and those fighting back to bring hope and change. Our journey will start in the urban jungles of South Africa (Capetown & Johannesburg) and will end in the contrasting countryside of Malawi.
So why am I going?
Here are some disheartening facts.
Approximately 45 million people worldwide are HIV positive or have AIDS (recent news releases (Dec 2007) by the UNAIDS predict this may be an overestimate (33.2 million), however in the past it has always been an underestimate…. Who really can count anyway? Besides all that- it is a lot of people!)
With inadequate access to health care and prevention.
• Approximately 5700 people die of AIDS related deaths each day (UNAIDS 2007)
• Approximately 6700 people are infected with HIV each day (UNAIDS, 2007)
• The death toll is >20 million people and is expected to reach >65 million in the year 2020
• There are alarming rates of orphans left by parents dying too young. Villages have been found with no living adults
So why Africa?
• Approximately 70% of the adults and 80% of the children with HIV/AIDS live in Africa
• Approximately 12.1 million orphans in Africa
• It has been estimated that in 2010 there will be 40 million orphans in Africa
• This is the same number of children enrolled in the US public school system!!!!
• South Africa: 1:5 adults are HIV positive (about 5 million)
• Kenya: 3.5 million people infected (7:10 of those are people between the ages of 18-25 years)
• Zimbabwe: approximately 800,000 orphans alone
• Tanzania’s death rate has dropped from 61 years of age to 46 years of age
This is just a glimpse of the destruction. See the entire UNAIDS 2007 update at: http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2007/default.asp
There is hope. Others have risen up out of the darkness. Uganda had an infection rate of 21% in 1992. With focused intervention and education, in the year 2000 there percentage had dropped to 6%. It is a time for the world to unite to combat this preventable disease and desperation. I believe in “kairos” a New Testament word, as translated by R. Brown as “a time of opportunity demanding a response: God offers us a new set of possibilities and we have to accept or decline”.
I have an invitation to go, to see, to experience and to learn. So, I go. I must go. I invite you to journey with me. Pray that we may understand our response to this crisis. Please check out or blog (hopefully it is up and running!) and if you desire more information, I have included other resources.
LINKS:
Blog: http://presbyterian.typepad.com/peacemaking/
www.aidsmap.com
www.unaids.org
www.ccih.org (Christian Connections for International Health)
www.e-alliance.ch (a broad ecumenical network for international cooperation in advocacy on global trade and HIV and AIDS)
www.stopglobalaids.org (Global AIDS alliance)
READING LIST:
• 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa (2007). Stephanie Nolen
• Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence, Christian Churches and the Gobal AIDS Crisis, (2004). Donald E. Messer
• The Children of Africa Confront AIDS (2003). Ohio University Research in International Studies, edited by Arvind Singhal and W. Stephen Howard
• The Heaven Shop (2004). Deborah Ellis
• We are all the Same (2004). Jim Wooten
