Lausanne World Pulse – Responding to HIV/AIDS “As You Go”
By Evvy Campbell
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Question: How can a critical mass of Christians be stimulated to respond in a significant, biblically holistic way to HIV/AIDS? |
As a faculty member at Wheaton College (Wheaton, Illinois, USA), I received an email invitation last year from a leader in the Student Global AIDS Campaign inviting me to participate in a panel discussion on HIV/AIDS. “What I am aiming for,” he said, “is to convince students that responding to AIDS does not [necessarily] mean giving up a career and going to Africa or India. I want students to walk away from the discussion feeling that AIDS is something they can respond to simply by the way they live their lives and eventually go about their careers.”
I have thought a good deal about that aim and focus, both in preparing my panel remarks and subsequently. Given the cascade of responsibilities and activities that fill daily life, not to mention the multiplicity of career directions, how can a critical mass of Christians be stimulated to respond in a significant, biblically holistic way to HIV/AIDS?
Part of the answer to that question may come in parsing out the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20. Historically, there has been an emphasis not on the main verb of make disciples but on go, which might be better translated going or as you go. In this greatest of pandemics, while there is a clear need for many to undertake HIV/AIDS as a life calling, it is equally crucial that large numbers engage the pandemic “as they go” in response to many life callings. How can that happen? Perhaps there are several ways forward.
1. Sit Together at the Table
Prior to teaching at Wheaton I had worked nearly five years in West Africa and then another nine years in international health with MAP International, a Christian relief and development organization. While part of my work at MAP included facilitating an initial organizational response to HIV/AIDS internationally, I keenly felt the need to be involved locally as well. I joined a community grassroots organization and signed up as a buddy for a client with full-blown AIDS. This was the late 1980s. Over dinner at a Mexican restaurant, my friend described the difficulties of life with AIDS. Only as we prepared to leave the restaurant did I realize that our waiter had stopped serving us, going so far as to have another employee accept our payment. It was a brief moment for me but a repeated encounter with stigma for my friend with AIDS.
During those same years, volunteers in our AIDS service organization regularly drove clients more than two hours for medical care because we could not find local medical providers. As our case load swelled to 180 clients, we struggled to negotiate filing for Medicaid and establishing appropriate accounting procedures. I had become chair of the board and with a knotted stomach had to meet with members of the United Way and the county health department who observed our vulnerable efforts with concern and sympathy.
| Dr. Evvy Hay Campbell is chair of intercultural studies at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, USA, and was facilitator of the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization Holistic Mission Issue Group. She is Lausanne senior associate for holistic mission. |