Newsweek International edition, August 15, 2005 issue put out an interesting and informative article: The Last Word: Richard Holbrooke, Dealing with the Disease. (Thanks to Dennis Wadley for putting me on to this.) In this frank look at AIDS in the world today, former US ambassador Holbooke talks about the massive barrier of stigmatization and the supreme importance of HIV testing. "Ninety-five percent of all the people in the world who are HIV-positive don't know it..."! And the result is catastrophic: "39 million people are expected to die of the disease in the next five or 10 years." Holbrooke also talks about the barriers of governments in denial, for which South Africa is now infamous:
"AIDS is unquestionably the worst health crisis in 700 years, since the Black death. ...Africa is the heart of the problem, and South Africa is its epicenter. The South african government has come under well-deserved criticism for being slow to react to the problem. The Mbeki government has not been a very strong voice in this issue. They've been famously confused over it. They have undermined the effort to educate people on how to prevent its spread and how to deal with it."
Please pray for the community of Philippi in Cape Town. Pray that God would give us wisdom beyond our years as we strive to heal a society that is tearing apart. As Holbrooke states: HIV/AIDS has already begun to "wreck the social fabric and security" of entire countries. Orphans especially are left completely lost amid the taters that remain as an older generation succumbs to sickness and death. Precious lives are taken and taken advantage of with nauseating frequency. (and here I'm gonna borrow from an email I recently sent to friend...) Africa, as a continent, is nearing the frightening milestone of a 50% juvenile population--that means that in the next few years, HALF of the population in most African countries will be under 15 years of age. If we just sit with that for a couple minutes you can only imagine the kind of chaos, economic crisis, roaming gangs, civil strife, and abysmal living conditions that are already increasingly visible.
Education in much of Africa is suffering immensly as the older generations are sick and dying off and unable to pay for their childrens' schooling. Not to mention that over half of the current teachers (in Zambia for example) will be dead in the next couple of years--dying at such a rate that healthy teachers are completely unable to carry the burgeoning load--so the schools just close and the kids roam the streets. Without parents to raise their children, without a formal education or enculturation, without protection from pedophiles and slave traders, and without connections outside of their resource-poor environments, half of the population in Africa is growing up to be....?? I don't even want to speculate. It's too infuriating and depressing all at once.
And I know Satan is rubbing his hands thinking of the hay-day he can have with this lot. It's just not an option for us to sit idly by without standing up and claiming that Jesus loves these kids and has a different agenda!--one that involves loving parenting, even if its not their birth parents, a safe home, adequate nutrition and education, and a chance to hear about the guy who loved them enough to leave his throne to die for them.
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