The Pandemic of AIDS
"Go tell John what you see." What do you see in this photo? Faces and faces of children?
A little girl in a white dress to the right? A school classroom in the background? Two cars of the visitors? Can you see by this photo that these children are orphans, that the killer of their parents was the disease, AIDS? Can you see that there are 12 million AIDS orphans in the world?
These children are orphans not because of war, famine, or floods. They are orphans because of a new plague that has struck the earth and that plague is as devastating as the Bubonic Plague so many centuries ago. This new plague was first discovered in 1981, named as AIDS in 1985, and became the leading cause of death in East Africa by 1986. Currently, the global pandemic has claimed more than 20 million lives; another 40 million people are infected; of these, 30 million are in Sub-Sahara Africa. There are 12 million orphans due to AIDS. Joseph Stalin, of the atheistic Soviet Union, once said that "one death is sad, three deaths is tragic, ten deaths is a disaster, a thousand deaths is a statistic." For many people, the enormous numbers of people infected by AIDS has become a grim statistic!!! Unfathomable statistics!!!
But not for Jesus and the followers of Jesus. Jesus loved all people, including the sick, deaf and blind. The self-righteous Pharisees said that sickness, deafness and blindness were punishments from God. Jesus simply loved and healed sick people, especially the ones who were poor and whose illnesses were associated with poverty. His followers do the same.
LET US PRAY: Dear Jesus. People are not mere statistics to you. By the miracle of the Spirit of God inside of you, people remain people who are to be loved and healed. Please Jesus, touch us in the same way. In Jesus Name.
