Tag: AIDS

HIV, Mission and Song

Why are we here? Why are we doing Medical Mission? What is our role, what is our ministry as Medical missionaries? There has been a sea change in how we, as the church, do mission work over the last few decades: No longer pioneers, but partners.

HIV is not a medical problem: its a social one that needs churches, politicans, traditional healers and schools working together.

Picture of HIV Virus Day Four: HIV/AIDS

Gisela Schneider opened the day on HIV. She told us two stories, one of a bishop at a national conference, washing the feet of those with HIV, and another, of a pastor apologising, in tears, to a woman who said how she has been unable to speak publically about her HIV status. The pastor apologised, because Christians too easily judge it as a moral problem, and forget that there are people in the midst of it who simply need the love of Christ.

When she first worked in Gambia in the 80s, HIV arrived, but it was simply referred to as “the disease”. No-one would talk about it, no one would accept it, and it was simply hoped that the patients would die and take away the shame from the family. The Lancet article in 1985 was the first to describe a hetrosexual disease spread by sexual contact. At that time, patients simply died.