I walked for two hours through the largest AIDS hospital in India during December, speaking with patients and helping deliver 700 Christmas gifts.
In one of the last wards of women patients, I saw a small girl outside the bar-like windows, crying for her mother inside. A few moments later, she whisked past me and ran to her mother's side. The mother took the girl into her arms and showed the child the new sari that I had just given her.
At that point, my heart reached its breaking point, and I could no longer hold back my tears. I saw not this nameless child, but my precious little granddaughter, Rachel. Suddenly, the full horror of the global HIV/AIDS crisis infecting 40 million people took on a personal dimension I cannot fully describe but can only feel.
The mother and child did not even have a bed to lay their heads on, only a thin mat on a concrete floor. The Tambaram hospital, located outside the southeastern coastal city of Chennai (Madras), is at 130 percent capacity, and more patients are streaming through the gates every day. In the 21st century, Asia, Africa and Latin America still have "no room at the inn" for people with HIV/AIDS. Denial and discrimination reign supreme -- most hospitals in India, public or Christian, simply do not accept AIDS patients.
After a few moments of breathing deeply and trying to stop my tears, I went back and sat down beside the beautiful little girl and her mother. I felt so helpless in the face of such hopelessness. The mother was clearly pleased with the lovely new silk sari, a gift from caring United Methodists and others in the United States. But I knew the child would soon be an orphan, for the world's poor are not receiving the effective antiretroviral therapy available in the richer countries.
Though I talked via translator with the mother, I realize as I write that I do not even know the child's name, and I have no idea what will happen to this little girl. People who know me understand the powerful emotional ties that bond me to Rachel. Somehow seeing this little Indian girl brought home to me the personal face and dilemma of the some 12.1 million AIDS orphans in the world. Their numbers escalate daily.
It is one thing to give lectures at international conferences, write resolutions, and preach sermons about HIV/AIDS, but another to look people in the eye as you kneel beside them. And then to look up and down the hall and see mother after mother after mother, ages 17, 21, 27, 22 ... Meeting young widows and orphans brings one face to face with the global AIDS pandemic.
I was among a group of Christians visiting the AIDS hospital that day. Our trip had been made possible by Dr. N. M. Samuel of India, Park Hill United Methodist Church in Denver, the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and the Center for Global Parish Ministry at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. The gifts that we distributed had been bought with individual donations from people in Colorado, Kansas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
My colleague, Susan Brown, lay leader from Park Hill, said later that she saw the face of God in the eyes of the people. I found myself asking repeatedly: Where is God amid this suffering? Where is the Church of Jesus Christ?
One articulate woman asked me some pointed and poignant questions. "Why aren't we getting the medicines available in this world? Why are there heart transplants but no medicines to help us?" Her cry is escalating throughout two-thirds of the world, since only 25,000 of about 25 million people in Africa get the medicines that sustain life.
We walked from ward to ward individually presenting the gifts. Outside the men's wards, women (mothers and wives) looked through the bar-like windows at what we were doing. Once we stepped outside they greeted us with smiles and gestures of appreciation for the gifts we had brought.
But outside the women's wards, no one looked through the windows. They are terribly alone. I was told some husbands and families come, but we certainly didn't see any. At the Third International AIDS India Conference, I learned that men spread the disease to their spouses and girlfriends, but the women are blamed and often tossed out of the home. They not only die, but they die alone.
We were able to identify several women as Christians, so we had a few longer moments with them. When told these were Christmas gifts, smiles broke out on their faces, and I heard them speak the word of Jesus. One very thin woman had a large Bible that she kept under her pillow while she slept.
While in India, I gave two speeches at the International Conference, and chaired with a Buddhist doctor and a Muslim cleric a session on interfaith-based care of persons with HIV/AIDS. I also preached at two Indian churches on the theme of Advent and AIDS ("Is There Any Room in the Inn?"). These were important and powerful experiences, but the time in the hospital made flesh the words spoken earlier at the churches and conference.
Recognizing the world faces the worst health crisis in 700 years, the United Nations recently declared unanimously that the "the global HIV/AIDS epidemic ... constitutes a global emergency." The UN called on every segment of society to come to the rescue, specifically mentioning faith-based groups.
To date, United Methodist efforts have been minimal. In the year ahead, three significant steps are needed. First, just as people must change their behavior in order to prevent and eliminate AIDS, church leaders also must change their own behavior. Compassion, not condemnation; involvement, not indifference, must prevail. The days of denial and discrimination must end.
Second, increased financial resources for education and prevention programs by the church are needed. Limited Advance Special funding curtails the outreach of the churchwide Board of Global Ministries. The Council of Bishops must make a special appeal, like it does for other world emergencies.
Third, annual conferences and local churches need to respond imaginatively to this global emergency. Supporting orphan outreach programs, speaking out for global social justice in health care programs and participating in volunteer mission programs are but a few examples of what can be done. This is not a "liberal" or an "evangelical" issue, but a call by God to respond to an urgent human crisis with the healing spirit of Jesus Christ.
May the compassionate character of United Methodism awaken in the coming year. Global aids education, prevention, treatment and care must become a priority agenda in the church's mission.
See also: Doctor, Theologian Team Up to Address AIDS in India, UMNS, March 19, 2001.
January 4, 2002
Photo Above: The Rev. Donald Messer (right) visits with a patient at Tambaram hospital, the largest AIDS hospital in India. The hospital, located outside the southeastern coastal city of Chennai (Madras), is at 130 percent capacity, and more patients are streaming through the gates every day, Messer says. A UMNS photo courtesy of the Rev. Donald Messer.
Please support UMCOR Advance #982345, "Global AIDS Fund" UMCOR encourages you to give through your local United Methodist church. Gifts may also be sent to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. To make a credit card donation, call (800) 554-8583 One hundred percent of your gift goes to this emergency. The generous giving of United Methodists to the One Great Hour of Sharing supplements the cost of Advance gifts.
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Source: United Methodist News Service.
Donald Messer is the Henry White Warren Professor of Practical Theology and director of the Center for Global Parish Ministry at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He is also president emeritus of Iliff. He can be reached at DMesser@Iliff.edu. Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.
