Musings from Graceland

WORLD AIDS DAY...I WAS WRONG
.

I remember sitting in a college class during the mid-80's and the professor telling us that within the decade, HIV/AIDS would have so spread that all of us would know someone affected. To be honest, I scoffed a bit. Yeah, sure. It sounded like one of those overkill statements. After all, in my circle, I didn't really know the kind of people who were back then getting this disease. At that time in America, most of us thought it was a disease caught only by people who participated in unsafe sex and used dirty needles while they did drugs. Oh sure, there was the rare case of a kid getting infected thru a transfusion or some other way, but surely it would never be something that was common.
.

And for about 15 years, I thought I was right. In fact, the whole HIV/AIDS epidemic that was supposed to sweep thru America and affect every family and group of friends just didn't seem to be materializing. And as medical progress was made and people began becoming smarter about avoiding it, I truly thought that HIV/AIDS would just stay something that other people got and would never affect my safe little corner of the world.

.

Almost three years ago I painfully became aware of just how wrong I was. Sure, none of my family or close friends were positive, but I found out that countless others who I loved were. That's right....countless.

.

If you have been a visitor to Graceland for any length of time, you've probably read about my family's journey from lazy, comfortable, insulated living to a life that was a bit dirtier, more demanding, and definitely more painful. God showed us nearly three years ago that we had been allowed to live in a safe spot, a place of healing and rest, but that it was past due time to move out of that season and get back in the fight. It was time for us to be searching out the least and the lost. To set the captives free from the bonds of slavery, abuse, poverty, and addiction.

.

During this journey, God connected me back to Swaziland, Africa, the nation I had been a missionary to for two years. Through the internet, I found people who were ministering to the orphans of that nation. Orphans who were part of a pandemic. Swaziland had been flooded with disease and death as a result of HIV/AIDS. When I had lived there in the 1980's, no one talked about HIV/AIDS. Well, almost no one. I remember one missionary doctor telling my brother that the HIV/AIDS rate among the general population was the same as the rate of infection among the prostitutes. I stored that fact away in my brain somewhere but it didn't seem real as I didn't personally know of anyone affected. And at that time, the rate was still relatively low. But fast forward nearly 20 years and Swaziland had become the nation with the highest HIV/AIDS rate and the lowest life expectancy in the world...and as a result, a rapidly growing orphan population as parents began, as described by a Swazi pastor, "dropping like flies".

.

Estimates of the infection rate range from 1/4 to nearly 1/2 of the population. 1/3 seems like a safe bet. One out of three!

.

That hit me hard. I realized that the preschool children I had sang silly songs with and the youth girls that I had hosted sleepovers for at my house were among these infected. And because so few are being adequately treated, most of them are dying horrific deaths. My babies. My students. My fellow church members. My neighbors. Dying, dying, dying.

.

The grief I plunged into was wrenching. How could this have been going on while I lived in blissful American ignorance? How many of my loved ones were gone? How many had left behind beautiful children? How many were still alive but living out the horror of the disease as it left them vulnerable to TB and other terrible conditions.

.

God was good and He allowed me to return to Swaziland with Children's HopeChest. What I saw continued to break my heart as I spent time among the orphans who are now starving and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. I held and hugged children who had lost siblings and best friends and uncles. I sang with teenage girls who live with the secret they they have been raped by male relatives who have passed their disease on to them. I met the infected women who are now widowed because their philandering husbands had been sleeping around and brought the disease home to them and their children. I met the grandmothers struggling to support 5, 10, even more grandchildren because all of her children have succumbed to HIV/AIDS and left her to raise their children. I met the pastors and teachers and caregivers who are fighting to step in and fill the gap in the lives of these children. I met people racing against a speeding foe that shows no mercy while they have little to no resources.

.

And I came back determined that I would never again allow this comfortable American life to insulate me from the pain of those fighting this scourge.

.

We, as a family, are doing what we can as God leads, to help Swaziland. We sponsor a child through Children's HopeChest ensuring that they get the medical care, education, food, and love that they so desperately need. And we're involved in other ways.

.

But we're not limiting our involvement to those affected across the ocean.

.

Yes, I was wrong. My thinking was at fault in two ways.

.

First, I didn't realize that many of those I knew and loved in Swaziland had died or were sickened from HIV/AIDS.

.

Second, I didn't know people here who were affected because I had become insulated in my safe, rural, non-messy world. God led us to inner-city Jackson where the first Sunday we ministered with WE WILL GO, we met two young prostitutes both already affected. Both already living with life sentences. Both scared and lonely and hurting and sick. And now I know them and I love them. And on a regular basis, I meet others. Others who work their way into my heart and the life of my family.

.

.

Others who one day I will grieve for when they lose the fight to this unmerciful demon.

.

I wish I hadn't been wrong. I wish it had been a disease that would quietly go away. I wish no one I knew ever had to hear the awful news that they were positive.

.

But my wishes are for naught.

.

And now that I know, I can never go back.

.

Knowing is hard, but doing nothing is not an option.

.

To find out how you can be involved in ministering to those whose lives have been wrecked by HIV/AIDS, follow these links:

.

http://www.hopechest.org/

.

http://tomdavis.typepad.com/tom_daviss_blog/2009/11/a-megaphone-with-1000-voices.html

.

http://swaziland.myadventures.org/

.

.

Or google groups in your own local area that reach out to the extremely poor who have little access to adequate health care and education, addicts, prostitutes, street people, and others who are especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS or perhaps there is a hospice or ministry solely devoted to HIV/AIDS victims. Many of these affected are not the obvious ones we think of. Not all of them are addicts or poor or really any different than you or I.

.

When you start looking, you'll probably be very surprised at what you'll find out there and who you'll meet and the stories you'll hear. And you just might find that though your world might get more than a bit wrecked, it'll be worth it...for yourself, for your family, and for those you reach out and love.