wfn.org | Commentary: Church must make AIDS ministry a priority

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Jan. 4, 2002  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-33-71BP{002}

NOTE: A photograph is available. 

A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. Donald E. Messer* 

I walked for two hours through the largest AIDS hospital in India during
December, speaking with patients and helping deliver 700 Christmas gifts.
 
In one of the last wards of women patients, I saw a small girl outside the
bar-like windows, crying for her mother inside. A few moments later, she
whisked past me and ran to her mother's side. The mother took the girl into
her arms and showed the child the new sari that I had just given her.  

At that point, my heart reached its breaking point, and I could no longer
hold back my tears. I saw not this nameless child, but my precious little
granddaughter, Rachel. Suddenly, the full horror of the global HIV/AIDS
crisis infecting 40 million people took on a personal dimension I cannot
fully describe but can only feel.  

The mother and child did not even have a bed to lay their heads on, only a
thin mat on a concrete floor. The Tambaram hospital, located outside the
southeastern coastal city of Chennai (Madras), is at 130 percent capacity,
and more patients are streaming through the gates every day. In the 21st
century, Asia, Africa and Latin America still have "no room at the inn" for
people with HIV/AIDS. Denial and discrimination reign supreme -- most
hospitals in India, public or Christian, simply do not accept AIDS patients.

After a few moments of breathing deeply and trying to stop my tears, I went
back and sat down beside the beautiful little girl and her mother. I felt so
helpless in the face of such hopelessness. The mother was clearly pleased
with the lovely new silk sari, a gift from caring United Methodists and
others in the United States. But I knew the child would soon be an orphan,
for the world's poor are not receiving the effective antiretroviral therapy
available in the richer countries.  

Though I talked via translator with the mother, I realize as I write that I
do not even know the child's name, and I have no idea what will happen to
this little girl. People who know me understand the powerful emotional ties
that bond me to Rachel. Somehow seeing this little Indian girl brought home
to me the personal face and dilemma of the some 12.1 million AIDS orphans in
the world. Their numbers escalate daily.

It is one thing to give lectures at international conferences, write
resolutions, and preach sermons about HIV/AIDS, but another to look people
in the eye as you kneel beside them. And then to look up and down the hall
and see mother after mother after mother, ages 17, 21, 27, 22 ... Meeting
young widows and orphans brings one face to face with the global AIDS
pandemic.

I was among a group of Christians visiting the AIDS hospital that day. Our
trip had been made possible by Dr. N. M. Samuel of India, Park Hill United
Methodist Church in Denver, the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries
and the Center for Global Parish Ministry at Iliff School of Theology in
Denver. The gifts that we distributed had been bought with individual
donations from people in Colorado, Kansas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

My colleague, Susan Brown, lay leader from Park Hill, said later that she
saw the face of God in the eyes of the people. I found myself asking
repeatedly: Where is God amid this suffering?  Where is the Church of Jesus
Christ?

One articulate woman asked me some pointed and poignant questions. "Why
aren't we getting the medicines available in this world? Why are there heart
transplants but no medicines to help us?" Her cry is escalating throughout
two-thirds of the world, since only 25,000 of about 25 million people in
Africa get the medicines that sustain life.

We walked from ward to ward individually presenting the gifts. Outside the
men's wards, women (mothers and wives) looked through the bar-like windows
at what we were doing. Once we stepped outside they greeted us with smiles
and gestures of appreciation for the gifts we had brought.  

But outside the women's wards, no one looked through the windows. They are
terribly alone. I was told some husbands and families come, but we certainly
didn't see any.  At the Third International AIDS India Conference, I learned
that men spread the disease to their spouses and girlfriends, but the women
are blamed and often tossed out of the home.  They not only die, but they
die alone.

We were able to identify several women as Christians, so we had a few longer
moments with them. When told these were Christmas gifts, smiles broke out on
their faces, and I heard them speak the word of Jesus. One very thin woman
had a large Bible that she kept under her pillow while she slept.

While in India, I gave two speeches at the International Conference, and
chaired with a Buddhist doctor and a Muslim cleric a session on
interfaith-based care of persons with HIV/AIDS. I also preached at two
Indian churches on the theme of Advent and AIDS ("Is There Any Room in the
Inn?"). These were important and powerful experiences, but the time in the
hospital made flesh the words spoken earlier at the churches and conference.

Recognizing the world faces the worst health crisis in 700 years, the United
Nations recently declared unanimously that the "the global HIV/AIDS epidemic
... constitutes a global emergency." The UN called on every segment of
society to come to the rescue, specifically mentioning faith-based groups.

To date, United Methodist efforts have been minimal. In the year ahead,
three significant steps are needed. First, just as people must change their
behavior in order to prevent and eliminate AIDS, church leaders also must
change their own behavior. Compassion, not condemnation; involvement, not
indifference, must prevail. The days of denial and discrimination must end.

Second, increased financial resources for education and prevention programs
by the church are needed. Limited Advance Special funding curtails the
outreach of the churchwide Board of Global Ministries. The Council of
Bishops must make a special appeal, like it does for other world
emergencies.

Third, annual conferences and local churches need to respond imaginatively
to this global emergency. Supporting orphan outreach programs, speaking out
for global social justice in health care programs and participating in
volunteer mission programs are but a few examples of what can be done. This
is not a "liberal" or an "evangelical" issue, but a call by God to respond
to an urgent human crisis with the healing spirit of Jesus Christ.
 
May the compassionate character of United Methodism awaken in the coming
year. Global aids education, prevention, treatment and care must become a
priority agenda in the church's mission.  
# # #
*Messer is the Henry White Warren Professor of Practical Theology and
director of the Center for Global Parish Ministry at Iliff School of
Theology in Denver. He is also president emeritus of Iliff. He can be
reached at DMesser@Iliff.edu.

Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

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