wfn.org | Challenge of working with AIDS

[BethAH@mbm.org]

January 24, 2001
Beth Hawn
Communications Coordinator
Mennonite Board of Missions
phone (219) 294-7523
fax (219) 294-8669
<www.MBM.org>

January 24, 2001

Living with dying:  MVSer faces challenge of working with AIDS

Grant Rissler is serving through Mennonite Voluntary Service as a
writer and photographer.  After spending a year as intern at the
Mennonite Central Committee United Nations office in Manhattan,
he is traveling for five months by bus to 20 other MVS and
Short-Term Mission sites, gathering the stories and experiences
of other volunteers and communities.  A weekly column by Grant
can be found on the web at www.MBM.org.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CHM/MBM) – “Joseph’s House is a place where men
come to die,” says Nathalie Cowells.

 From her third-floor office, she reflects on the past five months
floors below us, a dozen men who were homeless are living each
of her one-year Mennonite Voluntary Service assignment as a case
manager and personal care aid at Joseph’s House.  On the three
day with the reality that they are dying of AIDS.

Joseph’s House, Cowells explains, was founded here a decade ago
where the rate of AIDS infection is nine times the national
average.  A few of the many homeless men who suffer from AIDS
find refuge at Joseph’s House, which can provide, for 10 of them,
medical care, medications and, most importantly, the possibility
of dying in peace and with dignity.

On the mantel in the dining room sit seven photographs, arranged
with care in an assortment of frames.  Others grace bookshelves
in the living room.  All are of men who died at Joseph’s House.
“Some people who visit ask me if it’s creepy to have them
around,” Cowells says.  “But it’s important for the men who live
here to know that once they’re gone, they won’t be forgotten.
That’s the great thing about Joseph’s House.  There’s a great
feeling of family.”

On our tour of the house, we meet Paul,* who is in good spirits
today.  He recently regained enough energy to walk for the first
time in five months.  We joke for a few minutes, then move on.

“There are so many happy times here, but they’re balanced by some
really heavy times,” Cowells says.  “After the first couple of
weeks here, I began spending time with a man who was in the
hospital.  Sometimes we would have great conversations, sometimes
he wouldn’t talk to me at all.  But we were building a
relationship.  One morning I came in and I was talking to someone
about how I was going to visit Mark.  She said, ‘I don’t know how
to tell you this, but Mark died last night.’

“All the reality of Joseph’s House hit me like a big freight
train.  I wasn’t ready for him to die.  For three months, I
really struggled, partly with the death of these men, but also
partly with the lives that preceded death, with the pain and
suffering that these men go through.”

Cowells introduces me to the three staff on duty, laughing
together and cleaning up in the kitchen after lunch.  There is a
licensed personal care aid in the house 24 hours a day, she says,
and while there are about 20 people on staff, she is the only
full-time volunteer.

“This job has reinforced the way I view everything,” continues
Cowells, who worked in a hospital in Goshen, Ind., before
entering MVS and who will enter medical school next fall.  “When
I came here, I had never worked with men, I had never worked with
homeless, I had never worked with people with AIDS.  I was used
to a fast-paced workplace.  Suddenly, my job was to build
relationships and sometimes just to sit with someone, with no
communication.”

The men who come to Joseph’s House all meet three criteria: lack
of ability to live elsewhere, a commitment to being clean and
sober, and a diagnosis of third – or end – stage AIDS.

She pokes her head into another room and smiles at the sleeping
form on the bed.  “I wish you could meet Daniel,” she says as we
climb the stairs to her office.  “He’s wonderful to talk to.”

“[This job] has heightened my commitment to ideals I’ve never put
into practice before,” Cowells says as she shows me a picture on
her wall of her and one of the men, both smiling broadly.  “I’ve
always thought of being a doctor for the underserved populations,
but before, I never had the faces to put with those people.  Over
these months, I became much more comfortable with just “being
present” with someone, both in living life, and in dying.”

But the challenges of working with the possibility of death each
day are hard.  Cowells pauses and tells me that today is
especially tough because one of the residents died last night.

“As much as I’m fulfilled by this job, as much as I love this
job, it’s a very difficult job.  If I have one cup of emotional
energy to get through the day, it’s gone by noon.  Then it’s just
surviving the rest of the day.  Some days I come home incredibly
exhausted and drained.”

The energy to continue, Cowells says, often comes from her MVS
house.

“When I come home, I’m surrounded by people who weren’t at
Joseph’s House all day.  I can absorb some of the vitality of
others.  I’ve felt really supported, really fortunate in my
housemates.”

But, Cowells says, the pain she sees each day is part of a larger
problem.  “I discovered it didn’t really matter what I did
(myself); I wasn’t going to change things greatly.  While I’m so
happy that Joseph’s House exists, there needs to be something
done about the system.”

Why can’t these men get the same health care she can, she asks?
Why do these men have to wait four or five hours when they go to
the clinic?  Why is the only hospital in Washington that treats
patients without insurance being closed down?  Who’s going to get
them Medicaid?

“I have a college degree and I feel overwhelmed by the (health
care) system,” she says.  “A friend the other day said that what
we’re doing here is like spooning water out of a bath tub while
the faucet is still running.

“Somebody, he said, needs to turn off the faucet.”

*The names of Joseph’s House patients have been changed in
keeping with their wishes.
Mennonite Voluntary Service is a joint program of the Commission
on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church and
Mennonite Board of Missions of the Mennonite Church.
* * *
Grant E. Rissler       PHOTO AVAILABLE

Photo:  Nathalie Cowells stands beside a row of pictures of the
men who have died while living at Joseph’s House.