NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
November 29 , 2001
For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2802.
In this news release:
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The Tide Turns on AIDS, One Life, One Death at a Time
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Calls Needed Next Week to Help U.S. Ban Landmines
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Some Aid to Afghanistan Gets In, But Not Enough Gets Out
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Take a 40-Day Journey With Stand With Africa
THE TIDE TURNS ON AIDS, ONE LIFE, ONE DEATH AT A TIME
[An especially appropriate observance of World AIDS Day, December 1, is to honor individuals who are living with AIDS and doing their part to turn the tide of the pandemic. In the stories below, a woman's courage speaks from beyond the grave, a man's dignity is restored, and a pastor's commitment brings a new calling.]
These cases are drawn from activities supported by the Stand With Africa campaign of Lutheran World Relief, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America World Hunger Program and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod World Relief. As part of Stand With Africa, LWR has AIDS care and prevention projects in eight African countries.
FORGIVENESS, THEN COURAGE SPEAKING FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
Kisii, Kenya -- "It's a privilege for me to minister to people living with AIDS and people dying of AIDS." The words of the pastor are a breath of fresh air in a country where the stigma of AIDS still lies heavy on the land. He is one of a group of Lutheran, Pentecostal, Catholic, Adventist and Baptist clergy, school officials and teachers joining forces to help people living with HIV and AIDS. Lutheran World Relief is facilitating the birth of this unusual new community alliance.
The pastor, an Adventist, tells of a young woman who contracted HIV in the big city and came back to her village to die of AIDS. She had asked him if God would forgive her. His assurance of God's love and grace had helped her find peace despite her illness. She even found the courage to do what few like her in western Kenya had done before. She would let the community know of her disease.
She agreed that her true story be told at her funeral and even helped the pastor write the sermon he would give on that day.
"The response of those who gathered was overwhelming," said Kathryn Wolford, president of LWR, after a visit to Kisii this month. "A woman who came home to die as an outcast, had opened the hearts of her community instead."
Her family had already accepted her and her condition. Now community attitudes began to change as well. The orphans she left behind were not kicked out.
"Other pastors really began to understand what had happened too," Wolford said. The group of pastors, principals and teachers are now working more and more effectively with their congregations and schools to overcome the stigma of AIDS and to offer community care for people ill with AIDS and for AIDS orphans too.
BUILDING WITH DIGNITY, AGAIN
Arush, Tanzania -- Julius has been living with AIDS for eight years. His struggle was private but now it is public knowledge.
First came years of inner battle with the disease. Then he lost his wife to AIDS in 1996. Then he saw his carpentry business falter and fail as customers found out that he had HIV. But the temptation to hide the facts was great. Most of the time, he looked healthy enough.
Today Julius is part of a church support group. When a counselor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania helped him come to terms with his condition, Julius asked for training in how to speak publicly about the disease. He wanted to share his story and educate others about HIV and AIDS. So Julius and four others church members "went public."
"I am a different person now. I have self-esteem and a support system. Now people see me differently," Julius said. "I wanted to defeat the stigma associated with AIDS."
The church has helped Julius and is helping many others to reduce the stigma of AIDS. They also show people that the disease is not transmitted through a person's workplace. Now Julius not only feels accepted, but his carpentry business has picked up again, too. Customers have realized they will not get AIDS from the furniture he builds.
As another local craftsman who is also living with AIDS puts it: "What I build has as much beauty as it ever did, but now it includes dignity."
CALLS NEEDED NEXT WEEK TO HELP U.S. BAN LANDMINES
Baltimore, November 29, 2001 -- The U.S. Administration is preparing to finalize its position on the use of antipersonnel landmines. Lutheran World Relief and partners in the long-standing campaign to ban the weapons consider it likely that President Bush will decide to move further away from signing the Mine Ban Treaty, and move towards increased use of landmines.
Now is the time to encourage President Bush to sign the Treaty and commit to a ban on the use, production and stockpiling of these indiscriminate weapons. On December 3-4, 2001, the fourth anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty, citizens are urged to contact the White House and voice support for a ban on landmines. For more information on how to take action, visit LWR's landmine information page at: http://www.lwr.org/action/advocacy/landmines.html.
Many countries where LWR and partner organizations work are among the 60 countries where landmines take and threaten life daily. In Afghanistan, for example, minefields cover an estimated 300 square miles of land.
SOME AID TO AFGHANISTAN GETS IN, BUT NOT ENOUGH GETS OUT
Baltimore, November 29, 2001 -- Efforts to relieve the widespread food crisis in Afghanistan are still falling far short of success largely because of the insecurity and uncertainties related to the ongoing military conflict there.
"Food and other relief supplies are getting into the country, but not consistently out to the people," said Paul Jeffrey of ACT, the emergency alliance that includes Lutheran World Relief. Jeffrey is in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Aid is being sent where and when conditions permit: Two trucks from Peshawar with tents for hundreds of displaced families travel a risky route to Kabul; six trucks from Kabul with food for people in the central provinces of Bamyan and Ghazni; 6,000 family shelter kits and food parcels distributed in the same region. But mobility almost everywhere is difficult; a clinic has been closed and aid offices and vehicles looted in Jalalabad, and plans for opening a new office in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif are proceeding cautiously.
Local staff working for ACT members carry out this work in Afghanistan. Food is also being purchased inside the country in order to help the local economy and reduce transportation logistics.
Afghanistan veterans in the ACT network are reminded of events in the early 1990s. Norwegian Church Aid staff, for example, worked amid insecurity and conflict for years and are especially skeptical about prospects under the Northern Alliance, whose factions they dealt with at that time. "Nothing related to power and money" escaped their attention, one veteran aid worker remembers.
Last week, in an echo of that era, alliance leaders in Kabul declared that humanitarian agencies should cease their operations for a week, Jeffrey reported, apparently to ensure their control. "War-weary Afghans now face a chaotic future as feuding warlords carve their country into separate fiefdoms," he said.
Read LWR's Afghanistan Fact Sheet.
Click here for information on how to contribute.
TAKE A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH STAND WITH AFRICA
Baltimore, November 29, 2001 -- Journey through Africa with Stand With Africa's new interactive 40-day calendar. Adults and children learn how Stand With Africa is making a difference in the lives of African people fighting the battles of HIV/AIDS, hunger and conflict between and within African nations. Each day has a different activity. Start this journey during a special season like Advent or Lent, or on a special day like Christmas or a birthday. Visit the Stand With Africa website (www.standwithafrica.org) to begin your African journey.
Stand With Africa is a campaign of Lutheran World Relief and local Lutheran churches to support African churches and communities as they withstand AIDS, banish hunger and build peace.
