The initial idea for the book was mine (my thought was a regular book with a few photos), but my very wise colleagues fortunately overruled me, and the end result is much better.  That is one of the many benefits of working with a team.

You can order the book through the CMF website:  www:cmfi.org. Incidentally, our child sponsorship program for this part of Kenya now includes 4000 children, and is soon expected to be 5000.  All of these children are from the Mathare Valley and all are in school where previously they were not.  Many of these are AIDS orphans. But that is a story to be told another time.

There were 8 different workshops offered. I led one of the workshops and got to participate in three others.  Subjects included AIDS in America, ministering to the urban poor where HIV/AIDS affects 25% of the people, introduction to AIDS and how the church can be involved.  The workshop that I most appreciated was the one led by Michelle, counseling professor from George Fox University.  She had surveyed those with AIDS whom she has counseling, asking them to share comments for a group of church people such as would be attending the conference.  Her comments to us were directly from a high school girl who developed AIDS.  The girl’s parents also share their insights.  This personal touch was very moving and each attendee learned so much.

HIV/AIDS effects a relatively small percentage of the population in America.  Unfortunately, this means that many now view the problem as “something of the past.”  It most definitely is not that, especially if one sees oneself as a citizen of the world.  It is arrogant and unfeeling to think that AIDS doesn’t effect me when our very lifestyle keeps many people of the world in poverty where AIDS thrives.

In a week or two several of us from FAME and CMF will debrief, and one of our questions will be if we should continue this conference into the future.  I invite you to submit an opinion on the question.  Please, help us decide.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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. 

Where Was I God?

Lord, Creator of the universe, and the One who placed me upon this earth, Where have I been? Why am I only concerned enough now to read, just today, what a group of Roman Catholic Bishops wrote nearly twenty years ago, back in 1991 (!), and then after a year and a half of study (!!), about caring for the environment? Where was I God?

Where was I when my fellow brothers and sisters contracted HIV, but I ignored them, while focusing my Johnny-Come-Lately efforts on AIDS in Africa? Why was I, yet again, at least twenty years behind my more mainline denominational friends in talking about this issue? Did I not care? Where was I God?

I fully participated in a system that kept a man like me in pulpit and power, while at the same time denying my sisters even a taste of the same influence, let alone a full measure. Did I think I was better than they? Had I nothing to learn from Elizabeth Achtemeier, Elisabeth Fiorenza, or Elizabeth Elliot? Why did it take me so long to think and to even talk about this? Why did they find their home and acceptance in the World Council of Churches but not in the National Association of Evangelicals (or the NACC) for so long? Must one be an Episcopalian or a Presbyterian (bless them!) woman to preach? Where was I God?

Where have I been regarding diversity? Does spending much of my life in African and Asia exonerate me from having interaction in America who are not pasty white like I am? Why did I not write about this, (nor did any other for that matter) for the Christian Standard decades ago; the same time other Christians were writing on the subject for their denominational journals?

Lord, this is only a beginning. I haven’t even mentioned the disabled, the hungry, the poor, the homeless, the refugees – all of them your children. Nor have I spoken of my overconsumption in the face of these with next to nothing. Where was I God?

Forgive me Father, for I don’t think I was that close to you.

God, please, please take me beyond where I was … and am.