A Calling for the Church

“They are all around us. The people who are suffering from stigma, denial, discrimination and their products of hatred , malice, evil, fear, poverty and inappropriate behaviors. We need resiliency so we can keep our head above water. Is there a plan to combat HIV and AIDS? YES, the plan is to love one another in the name of JESUS.”

That was my part of my preaching some months ago in one of our partner churches when they invited me to speak about what the local church should do in assisting the infected ones with HIV/AIDS within their congregation..I started by asking for a show of hands. Who knows someone…

1. Who is HIV positive?
2. Who has conducted or attended a funeral for someone who died of AIDS?
3. Who is HIV positive in your congregation?

You can guess the answer! Number 1 and 2 were a 100% hands up, while the third question was 100% no hands up!!!

And I said, if you do know someone, you really don’t need me to tell you what situation is. If you don’t know anyone…shame on you!! You are too isolated from what is happening in your community. That isolation could take one of two forms: You really don’t know very many people and those you know are very protected OR you don’t know enough about the people around to know what they are experiencing. In either case, you are not making a connection with people who are hurting and need your care and concern.

HIV/AIDS is not asking anything new of the church community, rather AIDS is confronting us with the necessity of becoming more fully the kind of people we have been called to be. We need to take up our role to:

• Provide Hope, Courage, and Healing.
• Work with God to confront the evils of the pandemic.
• Save the lives of many who are suffering and dying.
• Provide spiritual guidance and counsel.
• Bring salvation to humankind, and finally
• Share and use the knowledge that God has allowed through science to fight against AIDS.

Lastly, I questioned on how the church will respond to the Lord’s word in the face of civil disruption or to challenges faced by specific communities. There are stories that stretch the imagination of how much individuals suffer and sacrifice. However, there are success stories, in CARE for AIDS for example, where churches have woken up to the realization that admitting there is a problem is the first step. We are not going to be talking about being overwhelmed by HIV and AIDS. We are to be talking about the opportunities to represent our God, to minister to God’s children and our brothers and sisters who need our caring.

What do you think about Duncan’s message to the Kenyan church?  What issues are facing OUR churches that we should be addressing as the body of believers?   How are we being too passive or ignoring the reality here in America?  Leave Duncan a comment and we’ll get back to you!

3 Routes to Self-sufficiency

Imagine this: you live in a country with 60% unemployment…you constantly suffer from malaria, TB, and skin infections…the people around you won’t even talk to you, much less hire you.  How would you provide for yourself, or support your family?  That’s the situation that most of our 1000+ clients were facing when they started the CFA program and that hundreds of thousands of other HIV+ Kenyans are waking up to daily.  The good news is that these people CAN support themselves, and we see them doing it every day!  I firmly believe that helping people out of poverty goes hand-in-hand with caring for their physical condition and spiritual needs, and I’ve observed that self-sufficiency arrives in 3 distinct ways:

1. Strength of Body and Mind

Many of our clients have the skills to work a trade or the land to farm, but they can’t take advantage of these opportunities because they are physically weak, many times to the point of being confined to their bed for months on end.  For these people, our workers serve as the link to hospitals and clinics, making sure they get the right medication and then teaching how and why to take the drugs.  We help them to eat nutritious food and live in a sanitary way that prevents infections, and soon those who were bedridden are ready to work.

Other clients have lost their emotional strength and simply given up.  They think that with HIV they are destined to die tomorrow, and they see no reason to work, take medicine, or farm their land.  When our staff sit with them and teach them that they can live 15, 20, 25 years – that they can see their children grow up – they take advantage of every opportunity and turn their lives around.

From clients in each of these situations, we hear a constant refrain:  “I was so down, but now I am strong!”

2. New Skills to Apply

After their health has stabilized, some of our clients still don’t have a trade, land to farm, or any other source of income.  This is when the 18 empowerment seminars they experience can revolutionize their chances.  They learn skills like soap-making, cooking, and charcoal-making, and these simple trainings lead to an income-generating activity that puts them on the first rung of the ladder out of poverty.

3. Wise Strategy

For those clients who have a skill or who start running a small business, we often see situations where a person is working but their situation just isn’t improving.  That’s where this third route to self-sufficiency becomes so crucial.  Our staff and outside trainers spend time teaching the clients about business strategy, from product choices to marketing, and financial skills, like saving and budgeting.  We also connect them with sources of financing and credit.  Together, understanding and resources allow them to take their ventures to the next level.  Soon, they not only have the income to simply fend off starvation, but they are saving enough to send their kids to secondary school or move their families into better housing.

In each of these three situations, people don’t need much to get started.  I am continually amazed with how Kenyans facing poverty will strive and push and dig deep to do everything they possibly can to improve their situation.  More than anything, everyone wants to provide education and a future for their children, and they will go to amazing lengths for this.  Often, all we need to do is pick them up and get them to take the first step, then they are off and running!

Duncan Teaching

The Fish Connection

I ran across an interesting article this week by Jamie Bechtel on the Huffington Post  entitled, “Spread of HIV Linked to Fishery Collapse: Is Fair Trade Fish an Answer?”  While I don’t think that the AIDS crisis could be entirely solved by addressing the diminishing ability of developing-world fisherman to make a living, the article does raise some very valid and oft-overlooked points about the connection between HIV/AIDS and developing economies.

Ready to eat!

Ms. Bechtel speaks to the idea that when fishing communities cannot find fish, several factors come into play that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS.  First, fishermen must travel further afield for longer to find work and income, leaving their family behind and making it more likely that they will expose themselves to the virus by starting a second family, engaging in extramarital affairs, or using drugs.  Second, women are often left without a livelihood and, in a place of desperation, end up in sexual relationships that expose them to the virus.  With less education and little earning potential outside of the fishing and food industry, maybe they consent to be married to an older man who has is already HIV+ or even resort to trading sex for food.

I’ve seen this dynamic play out firsthand in the Kenyan city of Kisumu, in the area on Lake Victoria cited by Ms. Bechtel.  It’s amazing how much more prevalent the virus is here than in areas like Nairobi or central Kenya.  The economy of Kisumu is entirely based on fishing, though, with most of the men historically being fisherman and most of the women either taking care of families or working in the fish processing, cooking, and shipping industries.  As catches from Lake Victoria have dropped dramatically, more and more people are forced into poverty.  Men get sick but won’t get tested, so they die much quicker than the women.  Cultural tradition dictates that widows are inherited as wives by male relatives of their deceased husband, so the virus spreads quickly as the women get treatment and outlive the men.  The article states, “fishermen are five times more likely to die of AIDS-related illnesses than farmers in the Lake Victoria region,” and I believe this discrepancy comes back to the industry decline and the increase in poverty among those who identify as fishermen.

Fishing boats on Lake Victoria in Kisumu

Here in the States, the connection between economic hardship and HIV/AIDS prevalence is often missed.  When I tell people that I work with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, the response from other Americans is all too often something like, “well, you just can’t stop those Africans from having sex all the time.”  Many times I have to bite my tongue, but this lack of understanding is frustrating to me.  The AIDS crisis is complicated, and I believe the much higher prevalence rate in Kenya, compared to the United States, is due in much greater part to poverty and economic conditions than it is to reckless behavior or moral inferiority.

It’s only when you start to meet people and hear their stories, though, that the complexity of the issue becomes clear.  I’ve talked to the desperate, the poor – the victims.  The circumstances that led to their infection go far beyond health or promiscuity to the economy at large.  The fishing industry is part of it, but on a large scale I believe we will truly see these desperate stories end as economic activity, education levels, and standards of living rise.  This is why I get so excited to hear of good work being done to help countries like Kenya in the big picture – because every part is connected!

What do think of when you hear HIV/AIDS and Africa?  We would love to hear what first comes to mind – leave us a comment! 

For the full article, visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-bechtel/hiv-aids-overfishing_b_1418795.html

Follow Jamie Bechtel @Jamie_NEWCourse