Wednesday Nov 4 11:45pm (Nairobi time)

Hey y’all.  Wow, this was quite the day and this blog post certainly won’t do this justice.  Started with another great breakfast, but went more “American” other than the beef bacon and passion fruit.  We then enjoyed a time of worship led by some local World Vision staff with the words “Mambo Sawa Sawa, Jesu Akiwa Enzime” which means “everything is alright with Jesus on the throne”; we followed that up with a devotion on Romans 8:31-39 realizing that nothing (no famines in Kenya; no AIDS in Rwanda) can separate us from God’s love.

Steve Haas, a VP for World Vision U.S. then led us in a 5 hour studyon HIV and AIDS to make sure we understood how the disease works, the role stigma plays in the disease & in these African communities, and the facts about African AIDS.  There is way too much to share, but here are a couple of thoughts.  He started out talking about a story from James Michener’s “Rights of Spring” where an elderly lady would catch flies, shake them so they got dizzy, pull the wings off, then take some spit and draw a circle on the table, then set the wingless & dazed fly in the middle of the spit circle.  When the fly meandered outside the spit circle, she would squash it and when she had five, she would eat them.  She repeated this every day.  The point Haas was making is that we all draw our spit circles; those areas that people should dare not go out of lest we squash them.  The question was then posed, “Where did Jesus spend His time?” The answer, of course, was outside the spit circle – with those who were unacceptable (sinners, tax collectors, lepers, beggers, prostitutes, etc).

Certainly there are HIV & AIDS issues in the United States, so why Africa?  Consider that 73% of all global AIDS cases are in Africa.  There are 33 million diagnosed with AIDS in the world – 1.3 million in all of North America and 22.5 million in sub-Saharan Africa (south of the Sahara desert).  Consider new infections of HIV – in 2007, North America reported 46,000 new cases compared with 1.7 million in sub-Saharan Africa (almost 40 times more new cases).  In 2007 there were 21,000 North American adult and children deaths from HIV & AIDS; compare this to the 1.6 million in sub-Saharan Africa (about 80 times).  Certainly HIV & AIDS is an issue in the U.S., but the magnitude impact in Africa is startling.

Our bodies have lymphocytes (white blood cells) that fight off disease by basically sacrificing themselves in taking on those sick cells.  These lymphocytes are instructed to do what they need to do by their master sergeant, the “T-cells” or CD4 cells which give orders to the lymphocytes.  Most infections & viruses come into the system and are attacked by the lymphocytes at the direction of the T-cells.  HIV is a virus (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) that actually attacks the T-cells and renders them useless (the picture here is HIV putting hands over the T-cells eyes & mouth so it can’t see what is happening or tell the lymphocytes where & how to respond).  With the T-cells rendered useless, any other infection occurs in the body and although the lymphocytes are still there, they don’t react.  Once the number of T-cells is reduced below 200 or less per milliliter of blood (compared to the normal thousands), the individual is considered to have AIDS (Acquired immune Deficiency Syndrome).  There is much more to say here, but that is good for now. 

ARVs (Anti-Retro Virals) are known to fight or suppress the HIV virus, but are not started until the body has been compromised with AIDS.  The HIV virus is a “smart” virus that unlocks the ARV cocktail and finds ways around it, thus requiring a new cocktail (mixes of drugs).

Ask yourself this question before reading on.  What percentage of AIDS cases in Africa were transmitted by the homosexual lifestyle?  What is your guess?  Let me first say that 87% of cases were transmitted through heterosexual intercourse (that is hetero, not homo).  10% are from mother-to-baby.  2% is through blood transfusions.  1% is from drug use.  Yes, less than 1% is from homosexual transmission.  Consider also that the fastest growing incidence of AIDS is in Russia where drug use is the number one reason; in China the number one reason is because of how the donate & pool blood – one infected person gets mixed in with 39 healthy people, and the result is 40 units of blood are now tainted to be passed on.

Consider another amazing stat – 60% of AIDS cases in sub-Saharan Africa are women; and the percentage of women as AIDS victims is growing in nearly every African country.  We talked quite a bit about how women are very susceptible to AIDS in Africa for a number of reasons including physical, socio-economic, cultural practices, and age. 

We talked quite a bit about the stages of living with AIDS (shock, reality, remembering, rebuilding) and what World Vision is doing in response to AIDS through Channels of Hope (activating communities of churches to have open dialogue, reduce stigma, and create environments for healing).  There is good news amidst the bad news; there is impact happening and as we continue to fight this battle, the future looks much brighter through these efforts.  For example, Uganda has moved from 20% of its population infected with AIDS to 5%; this is great progress.

We then heard from Perry, a lady who lives in Kenya who told the painful story of how over several year period she found out her husband was HIV+ and then died from AIDS, that she was HIV+ (and has been trying everything and battling) and then both of her sons (at different times) were tested HIV+ and both died a couple years apart.  This was a heart-wrenching story and she received a standing ovation for her courage in sharing it.  Perry’s plea to each of us was to do whatever we can in our areas of influence to de-stigmatize HIV & AIDS; that it is largely the stigma from the disease that causes people to take wrong courses of action (or avoid taking proper action).

We then had lunch and took a bus ride out to a Giraffe Park where we spent about 45 minutes (I’ll try to get some pics posted at some point); Mark Radeke French kissed a giraffe – that’s really all we need to know!  We all had great discussions on the bus; for me it was with Kevin from North Carolina who is their missions minister and has been involved in just intense, great ministry including bringing in 4 tons of food on helicopters as a last result for hurricane victims.  His role in global participation was mind-blowing yet encouraging.  The bus rides were a couple hours each way, but we saw so much of Nairobi including some just brutal sights of poverty.  At one point, there were a bunch of cows on the road that we had to wait for (we got some pics of those).  It was sort of tough driving back into our resort after that experience.

For supper we had a ridiculous meal of all meat – yep, that’s it.  Any meat we basically wanted to try. This included goat, crocodile, beef, chicken, and camel.  There was more, but it’s almost 12:30am and I’m losing it.  I actually liked the goat the best; the camel was sort of greasy.  The crocodile was more tender than I thought it would be and quite tasty.

The night ended with us talking to Mary (our ADP leader) about the details of our trip into Rwanda.  We’ll leave early Friday morning for that.  I was very tired and not in the greatest of moods; we came back to our room and the four of us talked and prayed together.  When it was Radeke & I we had a great conversation; he encouraged and challenged me in some cool ways.  I went out for about 30 minutes on my own and wrestled with some things and came to a good spot.  Africa seems to have a way of challenging priorities. 

Thanks for your ongoing support & encouragement!  Good night!