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Covenant Congregation Helping Battle AIDS in South Africa
By Craig Pinley
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (July 14, 2002) - The seriousness of the worldwide AIDS
epidemic has the attention of leaders throughout the world, including the
United Nations, a former U.S. president and the Evangelical Covenant Church
(ECC).
For one Covenant pastor, AIDS has been a high priority for the past two
years.
Dennis Wadley, pastor of Community Covenant Church in Goleta, California,
became passionate about the issue after reading a February 2000 Time
magazine article and photo essay about AIDS. His congregation rallied
around the cause, sending two mission teams to South Africa, the most
recent a 12-member contingent that left California June 17 for the Cape
Town area.
Wadley and four others returned July 8 from Cape Town, where they assisted
a church in Philippi (pronounced FILL-ih-pee), a township of 60,000 in the
Cape Town metropolitan area. Seven others will remain in Philippi until
mid-August, assisting St. Paul's Anglican Church of Philippi in an ongoing
cooperative effort to provide HIV/AIDS ministry. In March, St. Paul's
Pastor Mluleki Nkoloti and his wife, Lulama, a principal at a local school,
visited Community Covenant to update the church on its ministry.
Community Covenant's recent trip is part of an ongoing project called
Bridges of Hope, a ministry effort aimed at holistic community
transformation. Community Covenant will continue its ministry in October,
when five parishioners will begin a one-year mission to
Philippi. They will train leaders for a self-sustaining community
transformation effort that Wadley hopes can serve as a prototype for other
churches desiring to do HIV/AIDS ministry.
The mission team will raise personal financial support for the effort -
some already have sought the help of businesses and foundations. They will
meet with medical ambassadors from the area to gain valuable knowledge for
this unique urban community transformation effort. It couldn't come at a
more opportune time, given the realities
of how HIV/AIDS has affected the world.
A total of 36.1 million people in the world live with HIV/AIDS, according
to the World Health Organization (WHO). Wadley says that one in every nine
people in South Africa has the HIV virus that can lead to AIDS.
WHO officials recently announced new guidelines to provide anti-retroviral
drugs to three million people by the year 2005. Anti-retroviral drugs have
proved effective in the HIV/AIDS battle when given quickly and consistently
to patients. Approximately 300,000 people in South Africa could die in the
next six months without increased assistance to improve access to medicine
and vaccines, World Health Organization officials stated in a July 12
Chicago Tribune article.
Former President Bill Clinton is a strong advocate for bolstering HIV/AIDS
awareness. In a Reuters News Service story earlier this month, Clinton
called the AIDS epidemic "the biggest single problem for the world, barring
nuclear war." Clinton, co-chairman of the
International AIDS Trust, spoke at a youth forum during the 14th
International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
HIV/AIDS is so prevalent in South Africa that the internationally known
children's show Sesame Street is introducing its first HIV-positive
Muppet character to children in that country. According to the Chicago
Tribune, the female character (no name has yet been announced) is to
appear September 30 on the South African Broadcasting Corporation's
children's show.
The Evangelical Covenant Church is beginning to make inroads in the area of
HIV/AIDS ministry. In mid-February, ECC President Glenn R. Palmberg and Jim
Sundholm, director of Covenant World Relief, attended an HIV/AIDS
conference in Washington D.C. sponsored by the parachurch organization
Samaritan's Purse. It included seminars and a presentation of global
strategies for HIV/AIDS prevention throughout the world and featured
evangelist Franklin Graham.
Graham called AIDS "a plague of Biblical proportions," adding it needs "the
same level of commitment, zeal, money and resources that we have rightly
applied toward combating terrorism." Sundholm discussed the issue with
Wadley at the recent Pacific Southwest Conference annual meeting. Sundholm
believes it is a problem that could be the defining issue of the Body of
Christ in this generation.
After Wadley became interested in AIDS ministry, he found that few
congregations in South Africa were helping their own. "It's almost worse
than if the setting were a 'Third World' country," said Wadley, "because so
many people think that South Africa is a wealthy country because of the
diamond industry and the fact that it has a lot of 'First World' aspects to
it."
Wadley's visit last September inspired Wadley about potential ministry to
those suffering from HIV/AIDS. He and his wife, Susan, described meeting
orphans whose parents died from AIDS and learning about kids whose
relatives had raped them because of the superstitious belief that one can
be cured of AIDS if they have sex with a virgin.
This summer's Community Covenant trip focused on how to implement a
ministry that can last for the long haul. The team met with Ivan Toms,
director of the Department of Health for the City of Cape Town, to discuss
how to work with local organizations in HIV/AIDS ministry. Wadley said that
the worst of the AIDS epidemic is yet to come
for South Africa - the numbers are expected to increase until at least 2008
due to the lack of sustainable medical and educational programs in the
country. It was another reminder that a grassroots effort is needed both
inside and outside of South Africa to help deal with such a destructive
force.
"When we went last September, we realized that the solution to the AIDS
pandemic is multifaceted," said Wadley. "It deals with the issues of
education, basic health care such as personal hygiene, providing basic
medication and dealing with issues of poverty. Philippi has 70 percent
unemployment and the nation of South Africa has 40 percent unemployment.
The issues of poverty are complicated in an urban setting. People don't
have property to grow their own food - they live on tiny plots with shacks
pieced together with wood."
Doing ministry in South Africa has been heart-wrenching at times for Wadley
and his wife. Last fall, the Wadleys met a family whose mother and father
both had AIDS.
Both parents have since died, along with a son who was killed by a gang
member.
Wadley said that one of the more poignant memories of the recent trip
pertained to the funeral of a local man who died of AIDS. A year earlier,
the man's wife died from the AIDS virus - they left behind a four-year-old
son who also suffers from AIDS. "His father's greatest concern was that he
would have no one to play with," said Wadley
recalling the days before the dad died. "The neighborhood parents wouldn't
let the kids play with him. But at the father's funeral, little kids from
the local church were playing with him.
"Many churches won't help AIDS patients, and pastors whose churches are
HIV/AIDS friendly are accused by others as having AIDS," Wadley observed.
This is "an
HIV/AIDS friendly" church and as a result of the education we gave, church
parents were allowing their kids to play with them. The incident was
touching."
To learn more about Community Covenant's recent trips to South Africa,
email the Wadley family at dwadley@community-covenant.org. More about
Bridges of Hope can be found by checking the ministry's web site at
www.bridges-of-hope.org. Information about the United Nations and its work
with AIDS (UNAIDS) can be found by visiting www.unaids.org.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
