According to the 2005 joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS:
* 65 million people suffer from HIV and AIDS
* 40 million people are currently living with HIV
* 25 million have died from AIDS
* 15 million children are orphaned due to AIDS. The number is projected to be 25 million by 2010.
AIDS is listed among the 7 worst plagues in history. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/415518/Worst-Plagues-in-History
Valerie Bell, in her book An African Awakening, writes,
"Do we understand the lifetime scope of the battle we are facing? Something of commitment, something more holistic than just an occasional random donation, seems necessary. Something of our lifestyles, something more like a portion of our lives may be the only way to tame the beast. ...I'm joining a movement of others who are redefining character by exploring new ways to commit to global spirituality. AIDS will take us places we haven't been before, either as individuals or as a world. AIDS is the spiritually defining issue for our generation..."
AIDS is described as the world's greatest humanitarian crisis. Honestly, I'm just waking up to the reality and scope of this pandemic. How about you? Any thoughts about this?
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3 comments:
"...the spiritually defining issue for our generation." That really got me thinking. I attended a talk a couple of years ago when the citizens of Africa made up 11% of the world's population but 76% of the world's cases of HIV. At the same time in the United States African American men and women constituted 12% of our country's population but 47% cases of HIV in the U.S. More women have HIV than men, and HIV/AIDS is most prominent among minority women.
This is a preventable disease. We know exactly how it is spread and how to avoid it. There are affordable medications that help stop the spread. For example, in the United States all pregnant women are tested for HIV. If they test positive, the fetus and mother are given medications that nearly guarantee safety for the baby during birth, and the baby is fed formula rather than breast milk. This has nearly eradicated the passage of HIV from mother to baby in the United States. However mother-baby is the #1 cause of the spread of HIV in the developing world and in the world as a whole.
We are followers of Christ with a mandate to care for the poor and oppressed. I wonder what role the people of Orchard Hill Church play in helping people like those moms and babies?
i just had a conversation yesterday with a friend who knows many people here in the cedar valley suffering with AIDS. i think the hard part for me of understanding that this is "the spiritually defining issue for our generation" is when i'm not face to face with it or can easily turn my head since it doesn't affect people i'm in daily contact with. i need to continue to learn and become aware of the reality around me. (and figure out what steps of action God asks of me!)
Yes. And by entering relationships with people who are different from us and who struggle with life in ways that are foreign to us, God illuminates our own spiritual condition in ways we could never otherwise see. Once you are in a true relationship with someone who is different than you, justified indifference no longer holds. You can no longer tell yourself, "I don't have to care because..." Instead, through God's mysterious ways, we begin to experience the painful, freeing, life-altering change of reciprocal redemption. I learn from you learn from me learn from you...
Have you seen the videos of the guy who travels the world doing his silly childhood dance? The first video I saw shows just him and I loved it. Then months later I saw a video that shows him dancing with the people around him and I could hardly contain myself. People of the world not only joined in his dance, but he joined theirs. Every now and then, you catch a glimpse of how the people made his a more beautiful, more powerful dance.
To view these two videos:
http://vimeo.com/1019038
http://vimeo.com/1211060
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