Swaziland ’07 – AIDS Crisis Peaks

We saw the consequences of the numbers last month in the haunted eyes of a two year old who walks from her home by herself to a feeding center. Her father is dead, her mother too sick to go with her.

It’s a human face on the tragedy that is Swaziland. She is one of 95 orphans that we found who hadn’t eaten in nearly a month.

Or consider the heart-breaking case of Tobile, a young girl raising her four sisters.

If you look at the inevitable consequences of Swaziland’s adult HIV/AIDS infection rate, you see a country in deep pain. People infected with the HIV virus subsisting on a poor diet die within about a decade of AIDS. So if you look at the HIV infection rate in 1997, you can roughly calculate how many people have died in the last ten years of AIDS.

A slow motion death wave is currently in progress. If ever there was an opportunity for Jesus-followers to rise up and make a difference, it is here. Children need care, young people need discipling; the need for this couldn’t be more urgent.

The good news is, if you feel moved to do something about this, I can plug you in at whatever level you want to help. Sponsor an orphan. Travel to Swaziland and adopt an orphan. Or buy the movie Dear Frances and show it to your Sunday School or church. It tells the story of our ministry in Swaziland three years ago.

Not particularly moved to do any of these? Let me suggest reading the No mommy blog and consider going on a trip like that and asking God to break your heart with the things that break his heart.