A Story of Aids in Africa

A story from the UMC Giving blog http://umcgiving.blogspot.com

I ran across the quote below from Stephen Lewis the UN envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa. I thought you might find this story interesting and disturbing.

It is early in 2005, and Stephen Lewis, 68, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, is visiting a village in rural Zambia. He is invited to inspect an income-generating project created by a group of women infected with AIDS. He is led along many dusty trodden paths to a field where the women are standing, holding up a welcoming banner.

The women are eager to talk to him about the men who have infected them, and what they think of such men. As the conversation progresses, Lewis notices he is standing beside a large cabbage patch.

Gesturing to the cabbages, he says, “I take it this is your income-generating project.”The women say, “Yes, absolutely.”

Lewis says, “I assume it supplements your diet, makes your immune system stronger, makes you nutritionally more secure.”

The women say, “Yes, yes.”He asks, “Do you have any of the cabbages left over?”“Yes. Absolutely,” say the women.

He asks, “What do you do with them?”“We take them to market and sell them,” they say. “That’s the income-generating part of the project.”Then Lewis asks, “What do you do with the income?”

The leader of the women says, “We buy coffins, of course, Mr. Lewis. We never have enough coffins.’"

This Lenten season consider a special gift to one of dozens of HIV/Aids Projects in Africa through the Advance for Christ and His Church. For more information, visit http://gbgm-umc.org/advance.

Kent McNish
Connectional Giving Team
United Methodist Communications
kmcnish@uncom.org