As I sat on the edge of the bed, watching her chest rise & fall
while she breathed, I heard children coming into the house. As they
entered the doorway, I looked past the others in the room into the
somber face of a 3 year old girl, who was obviously the daughter of this
friend we had come to visit. Immediately I thought “no, Lord, not
another orphan.”
We had been familiar with this family for a while because of another tragedy in the community and had been meaning to come visit their homestead for a while. I drive past this homestead so frequently, but have never before stopped to hear the stories of those who live in this humble cinder block house. As I thought many times over the past few weeks of coming to visit them, it just wasn’t ever the right time. But last week, one of our ministry partners passed them on the road, pushing this 24 year old woman in a wheelbarrow to the clinic on our property. She had become too weak to walk, had stopped taking her ARVs because they made her feel so sick, and had a very low CD4 count. As they got to the center & we began to make plans to get her to the hospital, I was humbled as I learned it was this homestead that she was from. The one I had been intending to visit, but God had brought them to me instead.
But now, a week later, we came to check on this woman who is at the end of her life at 24 years old, a single mother of a 3 year old daughter, a daughter of doting parents who are already caring for another grandchild. A family who is searching for a God that can be a solid foundation when all that they know as their family has been crumbling. We chatted outside for a while, sitting on the grass mat in the dirt while raindrops sprinkled down on us while the mother swept the house.
As they invited us in to visit our sick friend, I sat on the edge of the bed, with my legs in between the two beds that took up most of the room. My Swazi & American friends with me sat next to me on the bed & on a couple of chairs. Our friend laid on a shower curtain on a bed, her frail body covered loosely by a sheet, while her aunt sat on the bed by me & her mother & father sat on the floor. The two babies in the room were asleep within a few minutes of us talking, and by the end of our time there, two more children who came in were asleep on the floor.
We asked how our friend had been doing since she was released from the hospital and they said that she had been able to take the ARVs some, but the tablets were too hard to swallow. They talked about trying to mash them into her food or let them dissolve into water - any way to possibly get them into her body. She isn’t able to talk any more, but they do say that she can understand & sometimes communicate.
So as we sat in the room talking with them, we shared the gospel clearly for her to understand, and as faithfully as we could in order to prepare her for death. As her father asked questions and wanted to know more about what the Bible said about Jesus, I continued to pray that the Holy Spirit would translate through languages and into their hearts. As I prayed for this young, dying woman, I wasn’t ever able to look her in the eyes but I won’t soon forget the eyes of her daughter as she walked into the room. No one at 3 years old should have to watch their mother dying of AIDS.
Yet this is the reality in a culture where the AIDS rate is the highest in the world, where the life expectancy is 32, where the population of orphans because of the AIDS crisis is around 30% now.
Babies are born with AIDS, girls are infected with AIDS through rape, there are men who honestly believe that if they sleep with a young virgin, it will cure them of AIDS. Satan has a stronghold in sex and relationships in this country that just perpetuates the cycle of molestation, premarital sex, rape, transactional sex, adultery, polygamy...all of which contribute to the AIDS crisis.
Parents are watching their children die of AIDS, and being left to care for their grandchildren. Wives are watching their husbands die of AIDS, and wondering themselves how long they have because of this disease their husbands have brought home after sleeping around. Mothers are watching their babies die of AIDS, knowing it was them who infected their children.
And the world goes on as if nothing is happening. It should outrage us that 30% of this country are orphaned by AIDS, that a person dies every minute from AIDS around the world, that people are worshiping the idol of sex over the gloriousness of Jesus Christ.
My heart is heavy today on this World AIDS day...maybe because of the woman I told you about, maybe because I was greeted this morning by a 4 year old orphan whose mom I watched die from AIDS, maybe because I don’t know of one monogamous married couple from this area, maybe because I spent time this week with a grandmother struggling to care for her orphaned grandkids, maybe because I visited an area where the kids out number the adults now because so many are orphans, maybe because I have friends caught in the sexual stronghold of satan & struggling to get free, maybe because I share the burden of wondering how a country & community is going to care for so many orphaned kids, maybe because my heart breaks over these people who have been deceived into thinking that sex is the answer when there is so much more to life, including the Giver of life Himself.
On this World AIDS Day, join me in remembering those who have died from this disease, but more importantly, join me in praying for those who haven’t yet been infected - that they would learn from those who have gone before them & suffered; that they would be freed from the sexual strongholds of this culture; that they would seek the Lord’s plan for their lives & marriages; that they would be a generation that breaks the cycle of sexual sin in this area; that God would be more clearly known as He reveals Himself through godly marriages.
