Digging Deep: Speaking the Unspoken

A lot of what we discuss during Spirituality and Health week at the Centre is theory. Much of what we are learning is difficult to learn in any other way: Christian Ethics was our first topic. Healing and wholeness are topics discussed every week. Discipleship and Counseling are just two topics, among others, that are yet to come. While each of these lessons will (hopefully) play a role beyond the classroom, it is helpful to begin there first. We must understand what (Christian) African Ethics are and why they are important if we want to live holistic Christian African lives.

The same was absolutely true this week as we entered into another delicate but essential topic: HIV/AIDS. It is essential that we as community leaders are well informed about HIV/AIDS, for as we talked about this week, it impacts everyone. If one is not infected, they are affected. Everyone agreed this is true in all of our communities, even if we are unwilling or unable to talk about it. It cannot be ignored any longer, and this week our students learned all about it.

What do we do, then? How can we prevent further spreading of HIV if some communities will not even acknowledge its existence beyond the works of witchcraft? No one said it would be easy, but we all agreed, the key to preventing further infection always comes back to one thing: education!

The students learned this week that education starts with the basics: how does one get infected? There are only three ways: can you name them? You may successfully avoid means of further infection from now on, but: do you know your status today? What if your neighbor, friend, or kin discover they are HIV+? Do you know what that means? Do you know the ways you will NOT be infected if you continue to interact with them? Do you understand testing HIV+ means a lifestyle shift is in order, and that it does not mean the positive person is facing a death sentence? In many places today, if medication (ARVs) are needed, they are distributed for free! As are means of prevention of spreading the virus, such as condoms. To discuss sex, condoms or STIs is not easy nor is it often welcome in public domain, but it is necessary.

This is what we are aiming for at Espoir: ways to take all the theory and facts we are learning in our lessons in the classroom, and move out into the community to share them. This is the goal of each of our students when they return to their home countries in July. We must practice and have experience before we begin to teach, however. So this week, each of our students took one day out of the classroom to visit a VCT clinic. Many had never seen one before. Some had never been tested. This changed for many of us at SHADE as we (students and staff) were (voluntarily) tested together. We then stared fear in the face as comfort was thrown away so we could personally visit HIV patients with trained home-based caregivers. What was the most common response upon returning from visits? “They looked so healthy! I never would have known…”

The Methodist Church of Southern Africa has a campaign that says, “The Church has HIV/AIDS.” We - Christians - have AIDS. We - the body of Christ - have AIDS. We - SHADE - have AIDS. Who is your “we?” Perhaps you are infected. Perhaps you are affected. Perhaps you are both. You can only know for sure if you are willing to know your status. Get tested. Get informed. Get involved. Share your knowledge. HIV is real and present and - for now - here to stay. What are you doing to help change that?

What If...?

I was tested for HIV today.

I did not realize until this morning that I had in fact never been tested before. How is it possible not to "realize" this? I always "knew" my status. In the US, we are simultaneously privileged and naive, and though HIV/AIDS is still prevalent in our communities, it is in different ways. In different quantities, to start. I bet most people I know would say they have never met anyone who was HIV positive. I also believe they would be wrong, but would instead believe that most people have never met anyone who told them they were HIV positive. So they never knew; the face of a person who is HIV+ is not different from the face of a person who tests negative. I know this first hand, I have been surprised on many occassions to learn colleagues or friends back in the US were HIV+. and I won't lie: its scary to find this out. Fear, though we know better, can overcome you. Fear of getting it. Fear of losing your friend. Fear of stigmas. Fear! Fear. fear. why are we a people who are so afraid?

As I sat in the VCT clinic with my students filling out forms to be tested, I got an unexpected knot in my stomach. The fear was setting in. "What if..." - a powerful question, isn't it? Nearly all of the students (voluntarily) got tested, including some who had never been tested before. I was encouraged and anxious - the "what if" question was not just for me, but also for the 13 students I had with me on this particular day...

I went last. The sight of a needle to pierce my skin made me squirm. I hardly felt the poke through my finger for the blood... but the waiting! oh, the waiting how that 60 seconds can be so difficult - so full of anxiety and fear over something I "knew" only an hour before! "What if..." The question had to be asked... "What if..."

As the clock ticked and I waited for results, I thought of the many who had sat in this chair before me, and the many who would follow after. We share this seat. We share the prick into our finger. We share the fear and anxiety as we watch the blood slowly make its way down the test tube...

We share important questions... "What if..."

It is probably good this test is so quick. All of this emotion, all of these questions, all of this fear - and the entire test from the nurse walking in the door to when I knew my results, probably took about 4 minutes. Tops.

Yet in that 4 minutes, I discovered an abundance of questions that begin with, "what if..."

And as I prepared to leave with the students on to our next visit (home based care visit with HIV+ clients in a neighboring township), I realized that these are questions that need addressed.

If we can ask these questions in the fear, anxiety, or reality of testing positive, then we must also ask ourselves how we would want them answered. As caregivers, it is our responsibility to find the most honest, comforting, helpful answers to these questions for those we are surrounded by every day.

What if I test positive? Then I can still live a healthy life.
What if I get sick? Then my community will care for me.
What if I need ARVs? Then the local clinic or hospital will get them to me at no cost.
What if I am malnourished? Then my community will help teach me to eat better.
What if I feel down or depressed? Then my community will support, visit, and pray with and for me.
What if...
           Then my community will.....

We are the community. What are we doing to help respond to these questions?

HIV has changed all of our lives. We are either infected, affected, or both. What are you choosing to do about it?

Reflections on Wounded Healers

The conference thus far had been absolutely amazing. Words cannot describe how great it has been to meet the delegates and satellite leaders, to share in our stories that have brought us to this place, to learn and worship and pray and feast and fellowship together in this conference center that has been made a holy place by so many great people gathered in one place.

Every night I go home and think about the days past, about how much I have been able to learn and grown in this short amount of time. I debrief a bit with my sisters I’m staying with (Hannah, Rachel, Lucy and Joyce) and think about what has been and what is yet to come. About how we are growing not as individuals but as a larger community across the continent of Africa. I think about what it means to be a “wounded healer” and am thankful that so very many people who have such deep, cutting wounds have sought healing in Christ and want to use those wounds to seek further healing or prevention of wounds for others.

I have heard stories that sound like they are from a book. These are the stories that I have heard “of” -
you know, the ones someone else once encountered and it affected them so strongly they brought it home to share, to share with others that others might seek a means to help and make a difference. These are the stories I have heard before, the stories that have helped connect me to these men, women and children. The stories that have played such a strong role in developing my understanding of my call to do what I can as one part of the body who has a means to make a difference. We were told many times this week, “As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person.” That is the humble goal we seek this week. To make a positive change on person at a time. Easier said than done, as it is often harder to love one person well than to love the idea of changing a community. But that really is the point, isn’t it? That the higher path is rarely the easy one, and the right path requires a community such as Sister2Sister to rely on, encourage, and offer strength through prayer to one another. That is what this community has embraced. Those are the stories I am hearing.

Stories of lack of clean water in communities that are desperately trying to move on with education or development or farming, but who cannot because they must walk to carry dirty water home each day for cooking, cleaning, washing. Water that is making them sick, so the sick are taking turns with days off, meaning they really do need every person to help out.

Stories of communities where the average age is 14. Where entire generations have disappeared because of HIV/AIDS. In many households, it is difficult to be clear who is caring for who: the grannies for the babies, or the babies for the grannies. What would they do without each other? Where will this lead the next generation of youth?

Stories of women and children having violent crimes committed against them. Crimes of abuse, of violent rape, of being taken as child soldiers or sold into slavery. Crimes committed out of fear, confusion, miseducation. Crimes being committed because no one was there to break the cycle for them, because violence and abuse and fear are all some generations have ever known. Fear is the heart of so much of the evil and pain, and at times it seems unstoppable.

Then one comes to Sister2Sister Tujenge conference here in DRC, and we know differently here. Here, we are a room filled with people who carry these same stories, but something was different for them. For these women, children and a few men, these stories are as real today as they were the day the were a victim. The difference is that someone somewhere along the way reached out a hand to them - to one person - and offered them a way out of that cycle. Their worlds were changed. Now, these “Wounded Healers” want nothing more than to be that glimmer of hope and change for one other person. To return the favor as many times as they can. God has led us to this place, God has guided us through this healing, God has given us the courage and wisdom and presented us with opportunities to move beyond the cycles we were once in the midst of.

Here at Sister2Sister Conference, we are choosing God and God’s grace to continue moving us to a place of healing. We are focusing this week on the theme, the one thing that keeps us moving not from week to week or sometimes even day to day, but from moment to moment as we grow out of our own painful stories. We (Wounded Healers) are remembering that “Hope Is The Cornerstone of Africa.” Thanks be to God.

If Everyone Cared

I've come across this powerful video by Nickelback from their song If Everyone Cared

One of the verses:

...And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We'll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along
Singing, Amen I, I'm Alive...


What would our world be like if everyone cared? Surely the few modern heroes mentioned in this video cared and helped our world in monumental ways. There are countless others who have done the same... will you be one of them?