Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2015 | Page 51

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There could not have been a more unlikely group of strangers that
gathered for a trip to a faith-based hospital and clinic in Jos, Nigeria. The purpose was to
conduct a four-day workshop on HIV prevention and care for traditional birth attendants.
With me were 12 volunteers. Our backgrounds varied—actor, movie director, bookstore owner,
scientist, physician, writer, documentarian, insurance agent, decorator, pastor, and business
executive.
Within an hour’s drive from the Abuja airport, the landscape changed precipitously and by
evening we were completely immersed in surroundings that lacked the amenities of our culture.
During the time we had in Jos, each of us lived and ate with families who were engaged in the
HIV epidemic.
We visited schools for HIV orphans, spoke to HIV widows, met sexually abused young girls,
and met with families that had been devastated by the premature deaths of mothers, fathers,
and children. As we immersed ourselves in the pain that we saw and felt, we began to hold hands,
sing songs composed by those infected with HIV, and listen to words that spoke of suffering and
hope. All of us were meeting strangers who were allowing us to enter into their lives and, in doing
so, they also entered into ours, helping us to learn about their suffering and pain.
On the last day of the workshop we had a closing ceremony, a sort of graduation. Later that
day I saw members of our group embrace their host families, trying to hold back tears as they
said farewell. We made our way to the airport, retracing those first initial steps of uncertainty,
realizing that we might never see some of these people again.
What happened during those days? There was transformation of individuals. The HIV epidemic
was no longer just a fact or an amorphous mass of over 25 million HIV-infected individuals
worldwide. It had become about a real person who stood by you, held your hand, and prayed
for healing. It was a mother who could be touched and who expressed herself in tears or song.
It was a child who struggled to breathe even while sitting still. It was a father who lost his job

Dr. Arthur J. Ammann ’58 is founder of

because of the stigma of HIV, and with it all of the financial support for his family. It was a man

Global Strategies, a nonprofit foundation

dying of AIDS with his wife beside him, with no hope for treatment and a doctor saying, “Your

engaged in reducing maternal and infant

hope must be in God.”

mortality in the poorest countries of the

It was now about Esther, Samuel, Hope, Precious—people whose names we learned, but

world. His recent books include Women,

whose names Jesus had known all along. He had walked with them, hand in hand, and now they

HIV, and the Church: In Search of Refuge

joined hands with us to begin a new journey. What I felt at the end of our time in Jos is difficult

(Cascade Books, 2012) and (in)Visible: From

to put into words, but it seemed that in reaching out to a person—not with money or promises

Obscure to Valuable (Resource Publications,

or solutions, but with compassion—we were all able to reach deeply into the treasures of God’s

2014). He will soon publish the history of the

resources, and receive the reward of spiritual abundance.

pediatric AIDS epidemic. Barbara McLennan

The teachings of Jesus became clear: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of

’60 is currently serving on a collaborative

these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40). God knows no strangers. He

teaching/preaching team at South Park

knows their faces and ѡ