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AIDS and the church – hope for the hopeless
SALUNGA, Pa.— The Church’s mandate to respond to HIV/AIDS is not optional. This has been Beth Good’s conviction for many years, even before she began her work with Eastern Mennonite Missions as the catalyst for a global response to HIV/AIDS.
Along with her husband and children, Good spent ten years living and working in Kenya, which opened her eyes to the AIDS pandemic sweeping through the heart of Africa, and increasingly, the rest of the world. During this time she also observed how churches seemed to be doing very little to combat the spread of the virus.
“It was during that time that I felt the Lord was asking me to take a more active role in the fight against AIDS,” she recalls. “I was quite skeptical about how I could possibly make any difference in an issue that was so huge.”
But Good understood that God was not asking her to single-handedly turn the tide against AIDS. Rather, she realized if she could bring the love of Christ to even one person and allow Him to make a difference in that person’s life, she would have been obedient to His call. She has come to believe that the church is uniquely equipped to address the issues around AIDS.
“I believe [responding to those affected by AIDS] is a prophetic mandate from the Lord,” she passionately explains. “The Scriptures are filled with this mandate. Our God is love! How can we do anything but share that love with others?”
The experience of living and working in Africa for ten years, as well as her background as a registered nurse, uniquely prepared Good for the role she has had with EMM since 2003, which involves educating, coordinating, and raising funds for programs and projects related to HIV/AIDS.
Good was recently invited by two different organizations to conduct training seminars in India for two weeks. At each of these seminars, hosted by PTL India and Mennonite Christian Service Fellowship of India (MCSFI), Good spoke to about 75 people about ministering to those with HIV/AIDS.
“I was so touched to see the attention and response from each of these groups,” she says. “It was clear by their questions and participation that the Holy Spirit had begun working in their hearts long before my arrival.”
Good tells the story of Daya*, a woman who shared her testimony at a seminar in Delhi. Daya said she had always been “in charge of her life, even bossy”, and no one was ever able to tell her what to do. However, when she became sick with what was later determined to be HIV, her children carried her, helpless, to Shalom Health Center, a Christian facility meeting the needs of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in Delhi. It was there that Daya learned she really wasn’t in control, and in the days and weeks that followed, she was transformed by the love of Christ shown to her at the clinic.
Daya’s story itself is remarkable, but even more amazing, Good points out, is that she was willing to stand in front of a large group of non-infected people at this seminar and admit she is HIV-positive.
After Daya shared her story, Good wanted to have the group corporately pray for her, but “the stigma of AIDS is so strong in every country where I have traveled that I was actually uncertain of how the participants would respond to Daya's testimony.”
Amazingly, every person in the group went forward, laid hands on Daya and her son, and prayed for them.
“As I looked at Daya through my tears,” Good remembers, “I saw that she too had been brought to tears by this outpouring of love and acceptance. It was a holy moment!”
Good’s vision for EMM’s AIDS response is to work with partnering churches, organizations and individuals to address the unique HIV/AIDS needs in their communities. And rather than initiating projects or programs on her own, she seeks to help facilitate the projects, programs and ministries that these partners have begun.
A significant part of the initiative has been educating churches and church leaders using a manual Good wrote, titled “Ministering to those affected by HIV/AIDS,” which is now available in Swahili, Thai, Hindi, and Spanish, with Amharic and Oromo translations on the way. In addition to detailing how AIDS is spread and how it can be prevented, the manual also provides practical ideas to help churches respond to the needs of those in their community.
“I would love to work myself out of a job,” Good says, expressing her hope “that Christians and churches around the world would be educated and ready and willing to respond, and minister to those around them who are affected by HIV/AIDS.”
Now is the time to do this very important work, Good is convinced.
“Really,” she says, “if we do not respond to people now, especially children who are suffering, what right will we have to come to them later in life and present the Gospel to them? Why should they listen when we have not listened to their cries for help now?”
For more information on EMM’s response to HIV/AIDS please refer to www.emm.org/aids.
- Tim Hoiland
* Not her real name
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