Testimonials
RANDY FATH, Empower International Advisory Board Member
If there is one part of me that is wise, it is the one part that is refusing me to allow the writing of this brief report. How I feel in response to the 10-day trip to Kenya is voting strongly against the writing as well. This conflict is based on my own weakness because, like most people, I believed I could understand the AIDS pandemic through the statistics, and other reports.
Everything I thought I knew came to an end when I walked into the first hospital dedicated to the treatment of the disease; my first view being that of emaciated bodies of teenagers lying 2 to 3 a bed, or what were once teenagers.
Aged and feeble were supposed to occupy these beds, not the young who are at the very outset of their lives. My mind could not get a grip on what images were burning into my life. My first instincts were most likely what others were as well as I could not see it clinically, it made no sense. I saw it as a disease wrought about by moral choices. I do not know why my mind must make it a moral issue other than the fact that if it were not a moral issue then I would seriously have to readjust my understanding of God, and whom I believe Him to be.
HIV/AIDS is the hidden disease of Kenya attached with shame and humiliation. Most die alone in their homes having completely withdrawn from all social contact and have been rejected and distanced from their families, The fact that there are any people who have come to the hospital at all for treatment was the surprise.
Across Kenya are many VCT (Voluntary and Counseling and Testing) clinics dedicated to the problem, but the shame of being seen walking into these clinics keeps 99% of Kenyans out. Death before dishonor, human pride being more important than life itself. These clinics have available free Antiretroviral drugs that would allow another 10 years of healthy life, but they largely sit un-prescribed and unused on the shelves doing no good at all.
For the moment I allow myself to feel like the Kenyans feel, a disease of dishonor brought about by moral choices.
Having my mind escape to the moral quadrant I can separate myself from what I see, but before me are teenagers. This is just the first
ward of the hospital...The next ward we visited was that of children, toddlers through perhaps 10-year olds or 11-year olds. Any escape route that I had with the morality of this disease collapsed. My mind has no ability to accept this tyranny of death. Unlike war orphans who need only to hold out until the war ends where things can be rebuilt, the looming disaster here is that the state of affairs will only worsen.
I cannot look into the eyes of the other 4 team members as we stand in the children's' ward, we are all unable to allow ourselves to think what we are seeing. These children, almost without exception have watched both of their parents die as they themselves loose their grip on life. There is no Romans 8:28 here, only wholesale destruction of life, no mercy, no escape.
I try to consult my foundations, the God I thought I knew, the God I worship Sunday mornings at Living Water. By strict definition I know His presence must be here, but every sense I consult I find Him absent, having seemed to escaped as this tragedy as it started etching itself into the culture annihilating everything in its path.
Hopelessness is the only feeling available, jet-black despair in every direction and every angle.
Why was I here, why was I called to see this?I don't want to know the answer, I want to build and ark and escape, let whatever will be, be. But I cannot.
The program that we have been working on is called Empower International Vessels of honor. My last time in Kenya I was on a medical team where I got a glimpse into this world, but I did not get a chance to see it. At that time we formed this project that would get out into the schools and factories with the message of truth and distinction that as grim as it seems there is a future and a hope that is there for Kenya.
We had hired professional workers, professional people, all Kenyans, as well as a Doctor to go to the real Kenya with the message of Abstinence and Fidelity. The details are too complex for this moment, but we have now been directly working with 5000 young people to work within their cultural expectations to lead them to a lifestyle to escape what seems inescapable. In that context that means forming Abstinence clubs, organizing activities of value where they can build identity and self-worth.
There is no simple solution, culture is highly resilient to change when it really comes down to it, even with all the destructive facts on the table clearly seen by them.
What I do know is that in Matthew 25 Christ clearly speaks to six conditions; hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick and imprisoned, eternal life and reward is directly attached to the addressing of these areas. Being involved with this program, is directly fulfilling 5 of these 6 conditions.
Lord, when did we see you hungry and sick and thirsty, a stranger? Unfortunately, we all know the answer, the question is what are we going to do.
