Teaching in Amuria

Where to even begin? I know I’m going to try to describe this past week and some of it will just be lost in the re-telling. But I’m trying anyway.

Josh ( http://shaarda.blogspot.com) has seen a need for HIV teaching with the pastors and church leaders that he interacts with. There is so much false teaching and misconceptions surrounding HIV here. This fuels discrimination and stigma. But 30% of the population of Uganda is HIV positive! (Statistics vary from source to source but it is nearly one in three people infected.)  That was what we spent almost the whole first day talking about. What is stigma? Discrimination? How does the fight against stigma make a difference?  All of this brought up many discussion points.  (This group LOVED to discuss and ask questions!) Why are people afraid to go get tested for HIV? There is a widely held belief that HIV is a divine punishment for sin. I can’t honestly say how many hours we spent discussing blaming and victimization. Then there was question time. Here are just a few of the questions that were asked:  A woman who has never tested positive for HIV but has “killed” 5 men. Is she a carrier?  Where did HIV originate? How about a man's sexual hunger? What about circumcision, does it really keep you from becoming positive? What if one gets HIV in marriage, then what?

Oh, dear. I’m in over my head!

Tuesday was a new day with the topic that I was most looking forward to. The biology! What is the immune system and how does it work?   What is HIV, why is it different from other diseases and why do we as a church even need to talk about it? This all seems pretty straight forward to us but for all this to make sense we needed to start pretty basic- germs, bacteria, immune response and work our way up. We did a skit to represent how the health immune system works and how an immune system compromised by HIV can’t do its job. We discussed how quickly it spreads when a few people are sleeping with a few other people. This day had it's own set of astounding questions. 

Wednesday was prevention.  We discussed so many false beliefs like getting HIV from sweat and how condoms are not actually “safe sex”.  We had to keep going back to the (only) 3 ways HIV is spread. (If you want to know what these are just drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you the notes :-)  We also spent most of the afternoon talking about how to live with HIV. I only knew of one member in the group who was positive but am sure there were more, whether or not they knew their own status. In a room of 50 people, statistics say at least 15 of them were positive. We spent a long time talking about ARVs (the meds used to treat HIV) and there were MANY questions on this leading me to believe that some were already taking meds and others were anticipating being on them.

That left Thursday and end of life care. I’ve seen firsthand the neglect that takes place in the days and months before death. When a person can no longer care for themselves they are left to die, often not succumbing to the disease but dying from dehydration and neglect. We talked about going to visit, encouraging families, and discussions that can take place.  How do we encourage people and restore hope? One of the most common answeres was tell people that it is God’s plan. Yikes! I’m not sure I would find that reassuring at the end of my life! So we discussed. And came up with other, possibly more encouraging, things to share with people. 

Honestly by the end of the week I was tired. More tired than I’ve been in a long time. But as I look back on all the good discussions that took place (and forget the bad answers to questions posed) I’m encouraged.  I’m glad I had this opportunity and am already reworking my notes, studying up for all of those questions I didn’t anticipate and figuring out when I’ll do it again.  

One of the neatest parts of the training that is offered is that at the end of each day the participants have to write an action plan. These plans ranged from holding a youth conference to educate on stigma, to visiting people in their homes near the end of life.  In a few months I’ll go back and these folks will all report on how their action plans worked out and what challenges they faced.  I have no idea what their reports back will be but I’m looking forward to hearing of the work that God does in their lives and in their communities.