ELCA NEWS SERVICE
September 20, 2007
International Lutherans Counsel ELCA In Developing HIV And AIDS Strategy
07-153-MRC
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Discrimination and stigma, poverty and
hunger, distribution of medicine and access to health care are
critical issues to consider in addressing the HIV and AIDS
pandemic, according to Lutherans from Africa, Asia, Europe, South
America and the United States.
In an effort to inform and advise members of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) as the church develops an HIV
and AIDS strategy, some Lutherans from around the world were
invited here Sept. 10 to share with ELCA churchwide staff their
experiences in HIV and AIDS work.
The center of the church's action is not on the virus but on
the person, not on the disease but in the discrimination, said
the Rev. Lisandro Orlov, a pastor of the United Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Argentina (Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida),
Buenos Aires.
The problem is people "confuse a medical diagnosis with a
moral diagnosis. This confusion provokes brokenness in networks
of solidarity" -- family solidarity, work solidarity, social and
church, Orlov said. "We've (come to) understand that people with
HIV don't wait for compassion. They wait for justice," he said,
adding that HIV and AIDS is a political and theological matter.
Orlov serves as the regional coordinator for the Lutheran World
Federation's HIV and AIDS campaign in Latin America.
"If you agree to talk about HIV and AIDS in Africa, you must
talk about poverty," said Bayo Oyebade, Jos, Nigeria. "This is
what we've discovered." Oyebade is an ELCA missionary.
Oyebade said an important way for people to bring themselves
out of poverty is to build job skills. "It is possible for
people to help themselves," he said, stressing that an ELCA
strategy ought to place an effort in job development.
"HIV and AIDS is an open subject in the church" in northern
Cameroon, said Dr. Holly Nelson, a pediatrician and a former ELCA
missionary who served in Ngaoundere, Cameroon. It is talked
about openly in church, school, special seminars and even
weddings, she said. "AIDS in Cameroon is not a racial issue,"
and "it's not a class issue," said Nelson. "For me, as a
pediatrician, AIDS is a family issue."
With the knowledge that the government in South Africa has
regarding HIV and AIDS medicine, "we would expect fewer deaths,
would expect the epidemic to have turned from acute to a chronic
condition, but it is the opposite. We are witnessing people
dying at an alarming rate," said Verna Mzezewa, HIV and AIDS
coordinator, Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa -- a communion
of 18 Lutheran churches in southern Africa organized to promote
fellowship.
"The Lutheran church is among the leading churches with HIV
and AIDS programs. (They) may not be the most comprehensive
programs, but they are doing something on the ground," said
Mzezewa. She advised the ELCA to help build the capacity for
communities to engage with one another and identify factors that
fuel the spread of HIV and AIDS, so that the response is
contextual and not blanketed. "My wish is for the church to find
a niche in its response to HIV and AIDS, to make a difference and
be relevant and meaningful to the situation on the ground," she
said.
Dr. Jocelyn Mamy Ranaivoson, Nairobi, Kenya, said Lutheran
churches across Africa are in a variety of stages in HIV and AIDS
response. Some Lutheran churches in countries like Ethiopia and
Tanzania started ministries in the 1980s, while others have yet
to form a response where HIV and AIDS is prevalent, he said.
An HIV and AIDS program should have some focus on young
people and women, concentrate on bringing together church leaders
and congregations, and identify some of the most affected
countries and build response there, said Ranaivoson.
"In my context many pastors and church workers say that it
is taboo to talk about sex because it is a sin," said Deaconess
Mathilda Nainggolan, executive secretary and counselor on HIV and
AIDS ministry, Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (Protestant
Christian Batak Church), Sumatra, Indonesia. Nainggolan
expressed the hope that one day stigma and discrimination will no
longer be a reality. "Knowing about our bodies is not taboo,"
she said, "and the use of a condom is for protection, defense
against disease."
"It is estimated that 1 percent of the Estonian population
is infected, and it is mainly among Russian-speaking minorities
and injected-drug users," said Eva-Liisa Luhaments, HIV and AIDS
project coordinator, Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. But
given the stigma against HIV and AIDS in Estonia among doctors,
church workers and others in society, the percentage of people
infected may be as high as 10 percent of the population in Narva,
a city on the border of Estonia and Russia, she said.
As part of her work, Luhaments conducts seminars about HIV
and AIDS. The seminars "are meant for church workers, so they
won't be afraid of this topic, and to activate churches more
because, at the moment, churches are passive and distant from
society," she said.
- - -
Audio of comments by
+ The Rev. Lisandro Orlov is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Orlov.mp3
+ Bayo Oyebade is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Oyebade.mp3
+ Dr. Holly Nelson is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Nelson.mp3
+ Verna Mzezewa is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Mzezewa.mp3
+ Dr. Jocelyn Mamy Ranaivoson is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Ranaivoson.mp3
+ Deaconess Mathilda Nainggolan is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Nainggolan.mp3
+ Eva-Liisa Luhaments is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/Luhaments.mp3
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog
