Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders asked for local care and support for AIDS victims, calling on local churches in Africa and other parts of the world affected by HIV/AIDS to become support centers for those living with the disease.
“Every local church can be a support community,” said Pastor Jan Paulsen, speaking Dec. 2 at the church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. World AIDS Week commemoration at the headquarters was coordinated by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, the humanitarian arm of the church. “You don’t have to be a certified counselor, but you can acquire some skills that will help build relationships with people,” Paulsen said.
“There are 8,000 churches in East-Central Africa,” said Dr. Allan Handysides, director of the church’s health ministries, following Paulsen’s speech. “If even half of them opened their church as a support center just once a week, even if they only served cookies, or a banana, or nothing, people with HIV/AIDS could come and talk with someone who would care for them.”
Handysides said the need is on the local level, “not in big conferences.”
Paulsen said the church “can help undo some of the taboos” associated with HIV/AIDS. “We can remove the stigma,” he said.
“For far too long we have thought ... ‘serves them right’ ... while the vast majority who have to live with HIV/AIDS today carry [it] through no fault of their own,” said Paulsen.
“No, it is not a curse from God that causes children by the millions ... to become orphans.”
A survey at a November HIV/AIDS summit in Nairobi, Kenya, sponsored by the Adventist Church, revealed that only 13 percent of members thought their church would be accepting of a person who acquired HIV through homosexual activity.
“Let us preach that the Christian community is a caring community for all in every part of the world,” said Paulsen.
“People who are carriers who live with HIV/AIDS ... they need to know that in the eyes of God, and therefore in your eyes and my eyes, that they are highly valued human beings.”
“They are still part of the community. They don’t have to walk around and shout, ‘Unclean.’”
“I would hope and pray that our church can carry the same burden, the same conviction, the same modus operandi into our representation of the needs of a dying world where so many, many millions of innocent people and children are victims simply of a situation in which they found themselves.”
“He was precise and to the point,” Handysides said of Paulsen’s comments. “I was heartened to hear it. He shows his complete understanding of church not as an entity to be self-perpetuating, but as an entity to be caring in the community.”
Paulsen said hospitals and clinics in Africa are offering some help, but local churches would be able to help in less costly ways.
“When we are talking about money, we are talking about multiple billions. We have nothing to present. But there is so much in the ministry of caring for people which is low cost, humanity affirming, God loving, brother and sister loving…” said Paulsen. “It doesn’t cost much, and I hope we will do it.”
This year there were 5 million new cases of HIV reported—700,000 of them children, according to Charles Sandefur, president of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International.
“For ADRA, this means that commemorating World AIDS Day this year is more important than ever,” Sandefur said.
In addition to ongoing HIV/AIDS projects throughout the world, several ADRA offices held special events commemorating World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. ADRA Nepal offered free voluntary counseling and testing in Banepa and Damak.
ADRA Myanmar commemorated the day by holding competitions for posters, poems, and plays in the local tradition.
Handysides said HIV/AIDS is the “Greatest scourge to hit mankind. It’s incurable ... and could be prevented if people were more responsible in their behavior.”
Paulsen said many wives in Africa have no say in how a woman protects herself. ... “The husband tells her what happens, and when, and how. And the illness spreads.”
Handysides said he was grieved most by the apathy of those who are unaffected by the disease.
“In this apathy they actually show their true colors.”
Paulsen said Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders are dying and have died from AIDS.
About 40 percent of the population of Botswana is affected. In Zambia, some population segments are affected up to 1 in 4 and approaching 1 in 3. “You’d think membership wouldn’t have to wait for the leadership to do something about it,” said Handysides.
“Two of the most prominent sons of Africa today—Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan—have several times in the public chided the Western world and pricked our conscience and reminded us of the fact that HIV/AIDS is a human rights issue. It concerns the whole world. Often, it is a reality that today lies lurking at the front door of some—tomorrow it is going to be at our back door,” said Paulsen.
“Asia’s going to overtake Africa in due course unless someone comes up with a vaccine much quicker than we think they will,” he added.
Southeast Asia has one of the world’s highest rates of AIDS infection, second only to Africa. But the full consequences of the epidemic have yet to hit. According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 5 people in the region are living with AIDS but death rates are only 1 in 11.
In five years the region will experience double the death rate from AIDS, Handysides told ANN in a 2001 interview.