Wait
. . .
Sunday
Make
me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead
me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my
salvation; for you I wait all day long.
-- Psalm 25:4-5
by
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
By
early 2002, I had read a great deal about
HIV/AIDS in Africa. The numbers were staggering. In Uganda,
the most successful African nation at fighting HIV/AIDS,
6% of adults were infected. In Kenya and Malawi, 15%. South
Africa, 20%. Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Botswana, over 33%.
Twenty-two million dead, 40 million sick, 14 million orphans.
The world had never seen anything like this.
I
imagined myself standing at the end of time before the Lord
and hearing the question,
“What
did you do about the greatest issue of your day?”
The
last thing I wanted to say was, “Absolutely nothing.”
And so the trip Outreach Elder Jane Frissell and I took
with World Vision to Uganda in Fall of 2002 felt like the
right thing at the right time. Somehow the numbers needed
to have faces.
Pauline
was seventy-five, a beautiful African grandmother
in bright purple fabric. Her husband and eight of her ten
children had died of AIDS. Now she was raising six grandchildren.
We asked her the only question that seemed relevant:
“How?
How do you endure so much?”
Pauline’s
answer was,
“You
know, we don’t go very far alone. God gives me strength.
I will be joyful and praise God!”
And
as if to show that they weren’t just words, Pauline
began to pound out a rhythm with a can full of rocks, and
sang and danced for the Lord!
When
we arrived back in Seattle, we looked for
ways that our Bethany community might do something. Anything.
As we looked, it wasn’t hard to notice that God had
already brought a number of people from Uganda’s neighbor,
Kenya, into the Bethany family. Most of them were studying
AIDS-related medicine at the UW, and would be going back
to Kenya to work. It seemed that the “where”
question was answered before we really asked it!
Slowly,
some of the “how” questions have yielded answers
as well:
- child-sponsorship,
-
a Bethany vision trip, and
- partner
ministries in Kenya.
I
believe these things have changed us all. Now there are
faces.
O
Lord our Messiah, as we enter into the Advent season and
wait for you to come anew into our lives, help us to have
eyes and ears to recognize how we can be more deeply involved
in your redeeming work in this world. We are so grateful
for how you are revealing more of yourself to us through
relationships with our Kenyan brothers and sisters, and
we pray that together we can be your ministers of healing,
particularly as it relates to HIV/AIDS. For your name’s
sake we pray. Amen.
