wfn.org | ABCUSA: Kim Brown and 'House of Love' Hospice Featured in People

["SCHRAMM, Richard" <Richard.Schramm@abc-usa.org>]

Magazine

by Eleanor P. Lundy, American Baptist International Ministries

American Baptist News Service (Valley Forge, Pa. 5/19/03)--American Baptist
missionary Kimberly Jo Brown, director of The House of Love in Chiang Mai,
Thailand, a hospice for HIV-infected women and children, is featured in
today's issue of People magazine. In an article entitled "Angels of AIDS"
Brown is described as one of several women around the world who are
dedicating their lives to "caring for the dying and saving the living." 

The People article notes that Brown, along with a Thai nurse, founded The
House of Love in 1994 after social workers brought her a homeless,
AIDS-stricken prostitute and her baby daughter. The House of Love now serves
more than 20 children and several women, most of whom were sold into
prostitution from neighboring countries. Ostracized and unable to return
home, they remain at The House of Love until they die.

The House of Love is part of the Health Project for Tribal People, which
Brown established in 1991. The project, run in partnership with the Thailand
Karen Baptist Convention, offers AIDS education and home care programs to
ethnic minorities in their own dialects. Teams travel among villages,
offering support for families and congregations ministering to HIV-infected
people, who are often ostracized. 

Brown, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, holds degrees from the University of
Cincinnati and Kent State University. She has served as an American Baptist
missionary since 1984. 

"God has placed a deep love in Kim's heart for these children and their
mothers," said the Rev. Stan Murray, International Ministries' area director
for Southeast Asia and Japan. "I have visited The House of Love on numerous
occasions and always come away blessed by the example of Christ that Kim
demonstrates. She is a great inspiration to me."  

American Baptist International Ministries sponsors a total of 19
missionaries working in Thailand, in partnership with the Church of Christ
in Thailand, which includes ethnic minorities (Karen, Lahu and Akha tribal
people groups and Chinese). 

K/2003ABNS/03ABN74

American Baptist News Service: Office of Communication, American Baptist
Churches USA, P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851; (800)ABC-3USA x2077
/ (610)768-2077; fax: (610)768-2320; www.abc-usa.org;
richard.schramm@abc-usa.org