Last month my friend John Richardson, preacher from the Kern Park Christian Church in Portland, and I entered the home of a grandmother to pray with her. She lives in a shanty in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Her house was a mere 12 feet by 12 feet. There was barely room for us to sit down.
She told us her story. She came to Nairobi to care for her grandchildren who live with her. That is because the children’s parents died from AIDS. In addition to the two grandchildren, she is also caring for four other orphaned children, so a total of seven sleep in that hovel that has no running water or electricity. Though nobody in that house presently has AIDS, surely AIDS has visited this home with devastating consequences.
While our hearts were touched with her faith and steadfastness in such horrible conditions (even the people of Kenya say the conditions are horrible, this is not a comparative comment coming from a middle-class American considering his own home), what really impressed us was that she did not ask us for anything except to pray for her and for the children that they might do well in school and on their exams. She shared her faith with us, telling that that God is taking care of her.
When considering AIDS, we must not think solely in terms of those who have the disease-the infected; but also those whose lives have been forever altered by the disease-the affected. For every person with AIDS, from 10-50 other peoples’ lives are altered. In so many communities, particularly in Africa, you see primarily children and grandparents. An entire generation appears to be missing-those who have succumbed to the illness.
We have passed the quarter century mark since this disease was made known to the world. We, the church, took too long to become involved. But it is not too late.
