That blog post that I promised is coming... but I'm putting it off a bit longer. Josh wrote this article about our time and it does a really good job describing what we were doing.

HIV / AIDS TRAINING IN AMURIA

 The first week of February found Jennifer Kragt, a teammate of ours, and I gathered with 44 church leaders in Amuria. They didn‘t seem to mind the 100 degree heat or the dust being blown through the church building by the wind. I have been meeting with these pastors for three years but felt unable to equip them in the area of HIV / AIDS training. Thankfully, God raised up Jennifer for that task. 

 Who were the church leaders who gathered for this training? Elizabeth was a young mother who is also the women’s leader in her church. She also happens to be HIV positive. John is assistant pastor in his church. Twenty of his church members live with HIV. Charles pastors a small village church where only two of the 25 members are known to have HIV; however, nine of his nieces and nephews were orphaned when two of Charles’ brothers died of AIDS. Martha, prayer coordinator, has watched her sister battle HIV. (Names changes for privacy’ sake.)

 HIV touches every person in Uganda. Some statistics indicate more than 30% of the population is HIV positive. Yet Bible-based training related to HIV is extremely rare. That is why I was excited that Jennifer, a nurse by profession, was willing to teach this course. In four days she taught about fighting stigma and discrimination related to HIV; the truth about how HIV can spread and how to prevent its spread; how to remain healthy after contracting HIV; and caring for people near the end of their life.

 After learning about each of the four topics, the church leaders divided into small groups to make action plans. Please pray for these 44 church leaders in the next three months as they carry out their plans to fight stigma, train youth about preventing HIV through abstinence, help people live positively, and care for the dying.