Project Cure (original) (raw)

So Sunday the house was packed. Literally. Clare had to break out some extra chairs, and we had at least twenty people in attendance--probably more. Awesome! It's so good to know just how many people in our church (and some people not in our church) are interested in fighting the AIDS crisis.

The upcoming print campaign was mentioned, but not discussed for long (we wanted to give Lindsay plenty of time to talk). We are looking to have some educational materials ready to print by next month's meeting...making sure to get input from the email list and get a final version set before we translate it into Spanish. By the way, the translating into Spanish is a great idea, and if I could remember, I would give the guy who suggested it at our last project cure meeting the due credit.

Then the main event. Lindsay Lester talked about her summer spent in Africa, helping to develop an church-based AIDS ministry in the slum of Huruma, located in Nairobi, Kenya. The ministry is called Trinity, and aptly, is concerned with three activities: home care and visitation for the sick, fellowship time for those living with AIDS, and education/training for church members. Senseless is the word Lindsay used to describe the situation she observed-- where getting life saving drugs depended on what clinic you were diagnosed with HIV at, where people refused to admit their disease or accept treatment because of the stigma, where people continually died of a preventable, and also treatable, disease. But she also spoke of hope, a few AIDS patients who were speaking out, who were helping others to accept their status, who were getting proper treatment, who were going to live long enough to raise their children, and who are joining the battle against AIDS in places with prevalence rates as high as 70%. There are places to get the antiretrovirals needed to slow the progress of the disease, and they are subsidied enough so that people can actually afford them.

And Clare asked two terrific questions that I think should be standard in all future project cure meetings. How can we help and how can we pray? Funding for Trinity was mentioned...Lindsay has decided to raise $10,000 to purchase a building that could generate continuous funds for Trinity, and any donations toward that cause would help. Also, HTC will be sending another team to Africa this upcoming summer, and I'm sure at least some members of that team will have a chance to invest themselves in the work of that ministry while they are there. We can pray for Stanlas and Judy (Judy heads up the ministry, and Stanlas is her husband and the pastor of AIC Huruma, the church in which Trinity is based) and their work, AIC Huruma as a church, the people suffering from AIDS there in the community, funding issues, the ministry of Trinity itself, and strength and greater numbers for the workers in Trinity.

Signing off for now, but World AIDS Day is coming up...December 1st. The focus this year is Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS. There will probably be another posting coming up as project cure figures out what the plan of action is for that day.