Winds of Hope

Today started out as a lovely winter day, with bright sun and decent morning temperatures (60). About noon, the wind kicked up and it's now a blustery day, more in line with the winter here. The clouds are coming in and I expect it will rain before the day is over.

I think part of that wind, though, is hope blowing over the mountains. I've said it before, but I'm amazed at people's convictions when it comes to their faith. Even in the face of absolute adversity people believe that God will provide and, with a little help from ordinary people, it usually happens.

This week's case in point is a woman that Yvonne found out about on Monday. This woman, whose name I haven't learned yet (I forgot to ask - shame on me) has HIV and is moderately far along. She is hardly able to walk because of pains in her feet. She can barely take care of her basic hygiene needs let alone cooking and taking care of her family. She has three kids, a girl about 14, a boy about 10, and a girl just 1 year old. They are all living in a proper house (meaning it's brick and mortar, not a shack), which is a huge advantage. Her sister also helps out.

Having a house is nice, but they have literally nothing else. Yvonne and Nonke, Rev. Spiwo's 18-year old daughter, went to the house for the first time this past Tuesday. They found the woman alone and sleeping on cardboard on the floor. And wet cardboard, at that. I haven't seen or heard of anything that bad before, even in the shacks I've been to. The kids didn't have it much better - they at least had a thin foam mat to sleep on (yes, all three kids on one sleeping bag sized mat). Yvonne said it was so dire that she had to leave the house. For Yvonne to do that, it must have been very, very bad. Nonke stayed with the woman for a few minutes longer, talking and praying with her. When they came back to the Centre they had already decided something had to be done and made a plan to get some blankets and food back to the house. They wanted to find a bed, but no one had any ideas for getting the R999 it would take.

By the time Wednesday came, a bed had mysteriously materialized. The Centre is remodeling a room above its garage, which was previously used as an apartment by a couple guys. They had moved the beds out and one of these had been left behind. So, it was quickly commandeered by Yvonne and Nonke and they took it to the house Wednesday afternoon. I went with them, and everything they had told me was true. In a four-room house, there was a beaten-up table. That's it. There was a refrigerator, too, but it belongs to the woman who rents a shack behind the house (it got moved into the house during the recent rains and will go back to the shack when it stops raining). We took the bed inside and you'd have thought it was the only one in South Africa. Everyone was in a great mood and we all left feeling really good.

Today, about 10 people went back to the house for a prayer meeting. As I've described before, it was 90 minutes of songs, prayers, Bible readings, and more songs. (I was asked to give the Benediction again, and this time I actually did it right thanks to an Internet search I did a couple weeks ago. Who knew that there were so many ways to say an ending prayer?) The overwhelming theme of all of the prayers, etc. was to keep hope and faith. I think people with HIV/AIDS know that it will ultimately kill them, and very few people hold out unrealistic hope for a cure. However, they are very serious about hoping for a long life free from pain and anguish for them and their families. There are many people around JL Zwane to give testament to that, including some that have been in the support group for as long as 11 years.

Today was also about helping this woman and her sister know that others were supporting her, that they were not alone. That's a theme I've heard before, that people just want to know they are still loved and part of the collective family. I think we were able to demonstrate that just fine.

Unrealistic hope does happen, though. I heard a story last week about a woman who came to clinic wanting an HIV test. The story starts about a month ago, when she came in the first time for a test. Although she had tested positive at a different clinic just a couple weeks before, she was convinced that she would be negative because she had been praying extra hard and her minister had implied it would help cure her. She knew the Bible stories about od curing "incurable diseases" and she expected it would happen to her. Of course, she tested positive again. She went away unconvinced that she would not be cured. A couple weeks go by, and she is back again for a test. She said that, again, she knew she would be negative. This time, though, it was because she had made a "sacrifice" and God would reward her for it. Well, she was tested, with another positive result. The nursing sister actually had her read the test so she could see for herself that it was positive. They talked for a while, and it came out that her sacrifice was a R20,000 donation to her church. This woman works as a domestic, and probably only makes that much money in a year. So, she not only has no cure, now she owes someone a lot of money that she'll be lucky to pay off. The nursing sister said she left the clinic still hoping for a cure, thinking about what she could do to make that happen.

This story begs a lot of questions: Why the minister accept the money without asking questions? Why is he implying that HIV can be cured? Why can't this woman accept that she has an incurable condition and start to live with it instead of trying to live without it? There are no answers, of course, only opportunities to educate people and make whatever improvements we can.

As I predicted at the start of this post, it's now raining. I guess it's true that if you don't like the weather here, just wait 45 minutes.

More to come.