Part One
| Part Two
Speakers and Presentations
e heard two presentations on HIV/AIDS by two separate groups. The first group was a four person
women’s group, all of whom have HIV. Some have had their husbands die of it, leaving them both with the children and with HIV. They shared their struggle, their fears, but now even their joys… It is evident that the HIV medicines for adults that are being supplied through President Bush’s PEPFAR program is working. Men and women taking these drugs can arrest their HIV, live a normal life, even have children that when born will be HIV negative.
The second presentation was given by a young man, a recently graduated MA student in Public Health, who himself had contacted HIV through a single causal affair with a friend. He now, like the other women, can live a life, has a future and hopes by the end of this year to be married and have children. There was great hope and joy due to this movement forward in the face of this horrible pandemic. That is the good news.
The bad news is that for children who have HIV, the picture is NOT rosy. Health workers are asked to simply divide the adult doses of the drugs and give that to the children as they see fit. It is hit and miss at best and at worst, the children develop AIDS and die…the underlying reason is that for the drug industry, it takes four times the costs to research and develop pediatric medicine for HIV and they just don’t do it…. yet.
Upon my return I contacted the USAIDS department to “inform them” of my findings from Kampala. They first denied the problem, but after a series of email sharings, web sites with studies and findings of many others, one of the officials admitted that I was right. My response to him was that it was not an issue of who was right or wrong, but how to now approach the appropriate drug companies and “shame them into putting up the money to do the research and development.” Children are dying by the droves. But that is my job at AFJN, so onward Christian Soldiers!!!
I was impressed with the physical topography of Kampala as well. The very ground, red clay (dust), is just like Sierra Leone. The vistas were so very similar to Freetown and other places where I had been in Sierra that I felt immediately at home. Even the sounds of nature, the birds of the morning, the crickets, the hooting of pigeons were so much like Sierra. The people were very warm and welcoming, just like West Africans!!! I felt very much at home. And the temperature was WONDERFUL! It never got above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, while I had left the high 90’s in DC. The only problem I found was that no one spoke Krio!!!?
There were some differences: Kampala was much bigger than Freetown, and the traffic is even worst than Boston (or even Rome)!!!! One took one’s life in the hands of others every time one left the safety of the driveway and entered into the street, in a vehicle or even walking!!!! It was scary… In fact, the delegation from Tanzania to our meeting came by road and did have a fatal vehicle crash… The driver of the vehicle died, a few of the delegates were injured. The other thing that was so very different from Sierra Leone was that, in spite of having a rather consistent electricity supply, there was no loud or even background music in homes or storefronts from boom boxes and the like as they are in Freetown or Kenema. There in Sierra we lived (and got used to) constant music, and I always identified an African town with African music being present as the background sounds. It just was not there.
The Challenges of a missionary
The question that comes to my mind is: What does that challenge to my sense of being a missionary for Africa when there are such developments in the Africa Church? Do I feel “replaced”, or redundant? In many ways, I do. I do get a sense that what we once did as missionaries in Africa is no longer needed in most parts of the continental church. The Church is in very good hands. But I heard many of the YCS Chaplains encouraging me in the role I now have at AFJN. They really feel “represented” by me/us as I/we advocate for their well being here in the US and Europe. They rose to my challenge to begin working on an AFJN in Addis Abeba which can hassle the African Union as I hassle Congress, State Department and many others here in DC. We certainly have a place in the network of global advocates for our brothers and sisters in Africa.
The bad news is that for children who have HIV, the picture is NOT rosy. Children develop AIDS and die…the underlying reason is that for the drug industry, it takes four times the costs to research and develop pediatric medicine for HIV and they just don’t do it…. yet.
Also, the realities of so many Africans of the Diaspora present in the US and Europe also challenge us to make very real the call to solidarity and welcome that we in the US church should have to Africa. There are many ways that this can happen. It certainly is a different time and a different Church, both here and there, but we are far from redundant. But we are different and we need to recognize what that difference is and run with it.
So, seeing this vibrant young committed church was both a challenge to what I once knew “mission” to be and an opportunity to look for the new places where our unique experience, mission and service is to be done. We are part of this “transition” from a sending Church to a
sending / receiving / supporting / advocating / challenging / world Church. There is a place for our presence and wisdom there on the Continent, but in more select roles. We are called to be present there to remind this young Church that it is a Global Church, not a particular African Church.
(From Xaverian News)