AIDS: Just another way to die By Jace A. Williams Dec 1, 2009  posted 05-Dec-2009

Watch the video: (54 mB file)  "The Vanishing People"

AIDS: a global overview        By JACE A. WILLIAMS

 AIDS is a worldwide epidemic. The United Nations estimates 33 million people were living with HIV in 2007, the latest year for which statistics have been released.

Two million people died from HIV/AIDS in 2007. Antiretroviral drugs have helped drop the death rate, but not the infection rate. For every two people put on the drug five become infected.

Of the 33 million people with HIV, 2 million are children and 90 percent of those children live in sub-Saharan Africa.

-- An estimated 67 percent of all infections are in sub-Saharan Africa, making it the most heavily affected region in the world.

-- Roughly 5 million people live with the disease in Asia.

-- In the Caribbean, 230,000 people are infected with HIV.

-- Eastern Europe saw an increase in those living with HIV to 1.5 million, mostly in Russia and Ukraine.

-- In Latin America, 1.7 million people live with HIV. The biggest epidemics are in Brazil and Mexico, the countries with the largest populations.

-- Roughly 60 percent (1.2 million) of the 2 million people with HIV in North America and Western and Central Europe live in the United States.
 

-- The Middle East and North Africa have about 380,000 infected people. Sudan accounts for the majority at 320,000.

 -- About 74,000 people live with HIV in the southern Pacific islands. Papua New Guinea accounts for the bulk at 54,000. Australia has about 18,000.

 Source: UNAIDS’s Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic 2008. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS releases statistics every two years. For more information visit www.unaids.org.

 --30--

Just another way to die     By JACE A. WILLIAMS

 KATSE, Lesotho -- Death and funerals. Prayer for the dying and their families. More death.

It is a way of life for the Basotho [buh-soo-too] people.

 “They think HIV/AIDS is just one more way to die,” says John Younker, a two-month missionary serving in Lesotho [luh-soo-too], a country in southern Africa. “When you meet a person in Lesotho, or you meet a person in my village, chances are they have AIDS, or chances are they’re HIV positive.”

 John says that, according to the local clinic nurse, more than 400 people out of roughly 750 in the village are HIV positive.

 “They live such a hard life that if you test positive for HIV, it’s not a life-shattering, a life-shaking event because (you think), ‘Well, I’m going to die in the mines,’ or, ‘I’m going to die falling off a horse,’ or ‘I’m going to get in a car accident,’ or you’re going to die of something else,” John says. 

 “Why not AIDS?” asks John’s teammate, Drew Hooks.

 In this area, someone dies of AIDS every week.

--30--

Missionary couple races against time and HIV/AIDS

Urgency is not a catch phrase for IMB missionaries Alan and Babs Dial. It is something they live with, and are broken by, every day.

 “The Basotho are dying,” Alan says, his words hanging heavy in the crisp mountain air.

 The Dials work among the Basotho [buh-soo-too] people, who live in the high mountain ranges of Lesotho [luh-soo-too], a country in southern Africa. Alan says in these mountain villages, more than 65 percent of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS. Most will be dead within the next 18 months. 

“We are running out of time,” he says.

 Most people know that someday, maybe in the distant future, there is death. The Dials live with the daily knowledge that their people, the ones God has placed in their hearts, are dying.

 Babs Dial is known as “Mema Khotso” to her friends and everyone else she opens her heart to. The name defines her well -- “mother of peace.” It is the desire of her heart to bring peace to everyone.

 “I don’t want anyone left out,” she says.

 She digs into a bag full of forgotten articles of clothing, looking for shoes for a barefoot boy, a jacket for a girl with only a sundress, or pants for a small child wrapped only in a towel.

 Everything she does bring peace, even if for a short time, to these villagers’ lives. She tag-teams with her husband so one by one the Basotho can know true peace. As she says, “I gather them, he tells them about Jesus.”

 Some of the people are too sick to climb to the preaching points and will walk as far as they can to hear Alan tell stories of Jesus. When they can’t go any further, Babs helps them to their feet and gently shoulders their weight to help them the rest of the way.

 “There is always someone sick,” she says. “… All I can do is pray for them and share about Christ.”

 What makes the task more urgent for the Dials is that they cannot get to all the villages that need to hear about the saving grace of Christ.

 Some of the villages are tucked into the ranges, hidden by deep valleys and ravines. The Dials try. They hire guides and rent mountain ponies, sometimes traveling entire days to get to the villages. Pitching tents to sleep in, they spend as many days as they can telling Bible stories.

 In the intense winter months they fight the blizzards and extreme cold to encourage local believers. The snow keeps them from traveling far, but they never forget their race against death.

 They admit their bodies can’t take too much more and sadly talk of declining health and all the Basotho who might never hear of Jesus. So far their health issues have not slowed them down, but they know it could happen soon.

 The Dials dream that others may come to help trek through the mountains, searching for the next village to share Christ. They say the Basotho want to know about Jesus, often running after them asking for one more story.

 “We need every church, every person to stand up and say, ‘It is my responsibility to share the Gospel,’” Alan says.

 Babs weeps at the thought most of her friends will not make it through the next two years; weeps with the knowledge they are dying and need to know Christ. Because of this burden, the Dials work with a passion and urgency lost on many Christians.

 “When I am with someone who is dying I have been given a tremendous gift to tell them about the love of Christ,” Alan says. “It reminds me that I am running out of time.”

 --30--