VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 10/10/06)-Pastors, missionaries, and persons living with HIV/AIDS challenged dozens of Baptist leaders gathered together from across Africa to preach and practice transformation in order to make a significant impact on the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the continent.
"There is ignorance and fear," said Rev. Fletcher Kaiya, General Secretary of the Baptist Convention of Malawi, "but the church is there as a light to shine through the ignorance and fear to bring Christ to liberate people from these chains."
Kaiya addressed the joint general assembly of the All Africa Baptist Fellowship and the "Living Water" evangelism conference of the Baptist World Alliance at a conference center in Limuru, outside of Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday, Oct. 10. The joint event runs from Oct. 8 through Oct. 13, 2006.
Sylvia Opandu, a Christian activist living with HIV, said pastors must confront Christian ignorance and passivity. "When I went to Bible School, I met many pastors who, when I shared my status in class, they almost ran away," said Opandu. "They did not believe I was saved." Opandu, who runs a program at City Harvest Ministries in Nairobi, said many churches still have the "misconception that HIV is a curse and a punishment from God." This was hurtful, Opandu said, because she had been faithful to her husband. And she was not told by the doctor that her husband had HIV/AIDS until after he died in 1995.
Kaiya agreed that the stigma and taboo around women's sexuality is among the chief cultural issues that churches must confront with information. "[Traditionally, when] the husband dies, the wife has to be sexually cleansed. When a child dies, sexual cleansing has to take place," said Kaiya. "Girls, after circumcision, are supposed to sleep with an older man. Everything is around the [woman's] sexuality and not the man's sexuality." Kaiya said that the Baptist Convention of Malawi, with the support of the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance in the U.S., has produced a pamphlet called "Breaking the Silence," to talk effectively about HIV/AIDS.
But challenges remain.
"When we go to rural areas," Kaiya said, "we still find people preaching things that would be offensive to those who have the HIV virus, despite the fact that I don't know any one church or any one family that has not been affected." Kaiya said that within his own family of seven siblings, four (two brothers and two sisters) had died from complications and infections brought on by HIV/AIDS.
Like Kaiya, Rev. Bernard Kabaru Mwangi is also attempting to mobilize churches. In 2000, when Mwangi was principal of the Kenya Baptist Theological College, he said a survey suggested less than 40 percent of pastors surveyed believed that HIV/AIDS was a crisis. To combat this challenge, he mobilized a conference through the college, which brought together about 150 pastors, educators, and church leaders. Today, he is active in forming the Fellowship of Baptists of Central Kenya, more than 300 churches. He also lives out the ministry he envisions through Koinonia Baptist Church, a new church plant he pastors, just outside of Nairobi.
"There is awareness, but still not appropriately transformative responses that are self-initiated," said Mwangi. "I would expect every church to have a small group of counselors for HIV/AIDS. I would expect every church to have 'True Love Waits' for youth and 'True Love Stays' for married couples. I would expect every church to have some form of orphan support."
Baptist leaders from South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were among those who said they had developed policies, programs, and training for the churches in their unions and conventions.
Rev. Charles Jones, who is leading a delegation from International Ministries (IM) of American Baptist Churches, said mission partners can be useful in helping meet these ministry goals. "Just as an example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of our missionaries works with our denominational partner, the Baptist Community of Congo, to teach the 'True Love Waits' curriculum to thousands of Congolese youth," said Jones, IM's Acting Executive Director. Moreover, Rev. Eleazar Ziherambere, IM's Area Director for Africa, said IM was working in other countries, like South Africa and Zambia among others, to promote health, awareness, compassion, and support for those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.
Mrs. Michaele Birdsall, IM's Treasurer, said she was moved by the stories she heard. "I deeply connected with the testimonies of those living with HIV, particularly Opandu's story of power and the determination to live openly with her status and minister to others."
After her experience in Bible School, Opandu said she knows more than 15 pastors who are HIV positive. As a Pentecostal/charismatic Christian, Opandu also said she believes in healing, and believes God will one day heal her. But she and Kaiya said many have misled persons into not taking medication because they were supposedly healed by a preacher, only to end up dying later in the hospital. Only continued openness and honesty, she said, can help the church combat the disease.
"HIV is not a scourge, it is a manageable disease, like cancer or diabetes," said Opandu. "HIV does not kill, it is the opportunistic infections that kill, and now many of them are manageable and treatable. But what is killing people is fear. The church has a responsibility before God and before man to teach and preach against these social ills."
Andrew C. Jayne American Baptist Churches, USA Mission Resource Development http://www.abc-usa.org/