Title: International Lutherans Counsel ELCA In Developing HIV And AIDS Strategy ELCA NEWS SERVICE
September 20, 2007
International Lutherans Counsel ELCA In Developing HIV And AIDS Strategy 07-153-MRC
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Discrimination and stigma, poverty and hunger, distribution of medicine and access to health care are critical issues to consider in addressing the HIV and AIDS pandemic, according to Lutherans from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the United States.
In an effort to inform and advise members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) as the church develops an HIV and AIDS strategy, some Lutherans from around the world were invited here Sept. 10 to share with ELCA churchwide staff their experiences in HIV and AIDS work.
The center of the church's action is not on the virus but on the person, not on the disease but in the discrimination, said the Rev. Lisandro Orlov, a pastor of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Argentina (Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida), Buenos Aires.
The problem is people "confuse a medical diagnosis with a moral diagnosis. This confusion provokes brokenness in networks of solidarity" -- family solidarity, work solidarity, social and church, Orlov said. "We've (come to) understand that people with HIV don't wait for compassion. They wait for justice," he said, adding that HIV and AIDS is a political and theological matter. Orlov serves as the regional coordinator for the Lutheran World Federation's HIV and AIDS campaign in Latin America.
"If you agree to talk about HIV and AIDS in Africa, you must talk about poverty," said Bayo Oyebade, Jos, Nigeria. "This is what we've discovered." Oyebade is an ELCA missionary.
Oyebade said an important way for people to bring themselves out of poverty is to build job skills. "It is possible for people to help themselves," he said, stressing that an ELCA strategy ought to place an effort in job development.
"HIV and AIDS is an open subject in the church" in northern Cameroon, said Dr. Holly Nelson, a pediatrician and a former ELCA missionary who served in Ngaoundere, Cameroon. It is talked about openly in church, school, special seminars and even weddings, she said. "AIDS in Cameroon is not a racial issue," and "it's not a class issue," said Nelson. "For me, as a pediatrician, AIDS is a family issue."
With the knowledge that the government in South Africa has regarding HIV and AIDS medicine, "we would expect fewer deaths, would expect the epidemic to have turned from acute to a chronic condition, but it is the opposite. We are witnessing people dying at an alarming rate," said Verna Mzezewa, HIV and AIDS coordinator, Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa -- a communion of 18 Lutheran churches in southern Africa organized to promote fellowship.
"The Lutheran church is among the leading churches with HIV and AIDS programs. (They) may not be the most comprehensive programs, but they are doing something on the ground," said Mzezewa. She advised the ELCA to help build the capacity for communities to engage with one another and identify factors that fuel the spread of HIV and AIDS, so that the response is contextual and not blanketed. "My wish is for the church to find a niche in its response to HIV and AIDS, to make a difference and be relevant and meaningful to the situation on the ground," she said.
Dr. Jocelyn Mamy Ranaivoson, Nairobi, Kenya, said Lutheran churches across Africa are in a variety of stages in HIV and AIDS response. Some Lutheran churches in countries like Ethiopia and Tanzania started ministries in the 1980s, while others have yet to form a response where HIV and AIDS is prevalent, he said.
An HIV and AIDS program should have some focus on young people and women, concentrate on bringing together church leaders and congregations, and identify some of the most affected countries and build response there, said Ranaivoson.
"In my context many pastors and church workers say that it is taboo to talk about sex because it is a sin," said Deaconess Mathilda Nainggolan, executive secretary and counselor on HIV and AIDS ministry, Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (Protestant Christian Batak Church), Sumatra, Indonesia. Nainggolan expressed the hope that one day stigma and discrimination will no longer be a reality. "Knowing about our bodies is not taboo," she said, "and the use of a condom is for protection, defense against disease."
"It is estimated that 1 percent of the Estonian population is infected, and it is mainly among Russian-speaking minorities and injected-drug users," said Eva-Liisa Luhaments, HIV and AIDS project coordinator, Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. But given the stigma against HIV and AIDS in Estonia among doctors, church workers and others in society, the percentage of people infected may be as high as 10 percent of the population in Narva, a city on the border of Estonia and Russia, she said.
As part of her work, Luhaments conducts seminars about HIV and AIDS. The seminars "are meant for church workers, so they won't be afraid of this topic, and to activate churches more because, at the moment, churches are passive and distant from society," she said. - - - Audio of comments by + The Rev. Lisandro Orlov is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Orlov.mp3 + Bayo Oyebade is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Oyebade.mp3 + Dr. Holly Nelson is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Nelson.mp3 + Verna Mzezewa is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Mzezewa.mp3 + Dr. Jocelyn Mamy Ranaivoson is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Ranaivoson.mp3 + Deaconess Mathilda Nainggolan is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Nainggolan.mp3 + Eva-Liisa Luhaments is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Luhaments.mp3
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