News & stories New HIV/AIDS manual for church workers launched NAIROBI, Kenya – In two August seminars, Beth Good, HIV/AIDS initiative coordinator for Eastern Mennonite Missions, launched the new church workers’ manual she authored – Ministering to those affected by HIV/AIDS. At Mathari North Mennonite Church in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Shirati, Tanzania, more than 700 church workers participated in the interactive learning event concerning the church’s response to HIV/AIDS. Good, who was accompanied by her husband, Clair, two daughters, and five North American friends, led the seminars by tapping both African and North American participants to assist with the teaching. Participant Peter Cook, missions coordinator at Elizabethtown (Pa.) Mennonite Church, used a large ball of string to demonstrate everyone’s uniqueness and connectedness. As it provided medical background on HIV/AIDS, the seminar also touched on social and communication issues and gave practical information on how churches can develop their own responses to the crisis. The seminar also stressed that Christ must be the center of an effective and compassionate response. Good and the EMM ministry group also visited the Kisumu East diocese of the Kenya Mennonite Church (KMC) to see firsthand the work that they are doing through their HIV/AIDS program. Beth said the EMM group was moved to tears as they interacted with some people, like a woman named Grace and her three children, who are being assisted by KMC in partnership with EMM. Grace is an AIDS widow and near death, yet she invited the EMM group into her home and answered questions about life with the disease. She said the church had brought her food, medicines, and the greatest gift – hope. Now she is able to sit for short periods of time, and her children have food and are back in school. The EMM group also visited three HIV/AIDS orphans, Charles, Peter, and Jonathan, who live alone, eking out a living on their small plot of land. The boys told of the hope that arrived with the church program, which helped them to purchase school uniforms so they could continue their education. “We saw that connecting thread,” Beth said. “We are all connected through God’s love and his son Jesus Christ. We saw that firsthand – and were deeply impacted.” The new manual, Ministering to those affected by HIV/AIDS: a church workers’ manual, is available for purchase through EMM. Call Sandy Achenbach at 717 898-2251 for information, or visit www.emm.org/aids to find out more about EMM’s work with HIV/AIDS or to view the manual online.