wfn.org | A Pastor's Journey Among People Living with HIV/AIDS

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

Argentina: His "Way of Life Was Different from Mine"

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina/GENEVA, 16 July 2002 (LWI) - Working
exclusively with people living with HIV/AIDS, Rev. Lisandro
Orlov's choice is not the norm for many called to be church
ministers.

His journey with the disease began in 1986 when a family invited
him to meet their son working with afflicted people in the
Argentinean capital, Buenos Aires. Among them was a transvestite
"whose way of life was different from mine. But like everybody
else, he needed care and assurance that his identity would be
protected," Orlov told Lutheran World Information (LWI) in a
recent interview.

At 59 today, Orlov, a pastor of the United Evangelical Lutheran
Church (IELU) in Argentina, says he has never looked back after
that first meeting. But he is quick to express disappointment that
those in responsible positions often do not respect the
confidentiality that they are entrusted with by HIV/AIDS victims.
"An HIV-positive person may lose his/her job when confidential
details are leaked out." He says "this happens a lot in
Argentina," a country with a 0.7 percent adult prevalence rate
among its 37 million population.

The IELU pastor is concerned that sexual behavior in his country
is hardly changing despite the gravity of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Argentina's current socio-economic crisis-"a crashed economy"-has
increased poverty levels, and "the number of male and female
prostitutes is spiraling," he says. In the recent past
prostitution was not so starkly obvious. "Now it is visible in the
streets and cities," he notes.

Orlov cites the main challenges for clergy working in this area:
"What kind of pastoral approach should we exercise so that we are
close to all these people? How to say to all them, 'You are a son
or daughter of God' can be very difficult. Yet this is the
gospel's calling."

He says his experience has underscored what many pastors learn in
the course of service: "We have questions for which we do not have
answers. Sometimes we too have to change our minds and avoid a
moralist's standpoint."

Reflecting further on the impact of his country's economic crisis
on vulnerable people, the pastor without a parish recalls his
efforts at securing employment for people living with HIV/AIDS.
"We try to help them change their skills in these difficult
economic times when proclaiming hope to them is so difficult." The
IELU runs a home for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Four years of economic recession and the country's default on its
USD 141 billion foreign debt last December has seen the peso fall
substantially against the US dollar and sent inflation spiraling.
For Orlov, "it is a mirror to all other countries working with the
International Monetary Fund/World Bank that these agencies hardly
understand the solution let alone the answers."

He is concerned about the Argentine government's temptation to
ease itself out of a commitment to provide free antiviral therapy
for those with AIDS. "We have to campaign very hard for this
program to continue in view of the government's desire to drop
it," he adds, saying he strives to improve the quality, not
necessarily length of life.

There are two Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member churches in
Argentina. The 7,000-member IELU joined the LWF in 1951, while the
Evangelical Church of the River Plate with 47,000 members joined
in 1991.

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 133 member churches in 73 countries representing over 60.5
million of the 64.3 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human
rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and
development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of
the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted,
material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the
LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article
contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced
with acknowledgment.]

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