As part of the BMS World Mission focus on World Aids Day (1 December) , BMS worker in Guinea, Rob Eldred, talks about HIV/Aids, female circumcision and the emotional and spiritual impacts of the virus in an African context.
This year’s international theme for World Aids Day is ‘Universal Access and Human Rights’. This means working together so that everyone has the right to access to care and treatment of this illness and to be informed of how to prevent it so that we may each have the opportunity to live a life as God intended each of us to live.
Marthe Koya(right) and an interpreter teaching at a camp for young women aimed at HIV and female circumcision education
HIV is passed in three ways: through blood to blood contact, through contact with sexual fluids and from a mother to her baby either through the placenta, during birth or through the mother’s milk.
Each of these three means of transmission are elements that are not only proof of life, but sustaining of life.
Blood is our essential life force, sexual fluid creates new life and the birth and breastfeeding of a baby is one of the most innocent and miraculous gifts of life that God has given us.
I have been privileged to spend time with and listen to the stories of those affected by these three different ways HIV can be passed between humans.
Mary lost her husband to HIV and had been single for four years but then met someone whom she thought would be there to care for her and her children. She is now eight months pregnant and the man has long since left, leaving Mary with such huge unknowns as to whether her child will be born with HIV and worries for the future of her other children when her illness worsens. Pray for her, that she can continue the treatment she has started and that the support she is currently receiving through the medical centre and the work of Mission Philafricaine would continue to meet her needs.
Having HIV can often change the God-given partnership bond, through the emotional and provocative responses. “It’s their fault that they caught it,†and “Why waste money when people can never learn to control themselves?†are just some of the responses I’ve heard, even from Christian believers.
Eva had remained faithful to her husband and it was only when she developed a lasting cough that she decided to be tested for HIV.
Presentation at the end of an education camp
She and her husband are still together, (along with her seven children) and although she has to hide the fact that she is HIV positive, she is a woman of enormous potential in talking and helping others in the same position. Pray that her husband begins to see the importance of sharing this burden and that Eva is allowed to become a tool for change in Macenta.
Female circumcision is a ritual still practised in Guinea, which not only leaves huge psychological scars on the girls but also greatly increases the risk of getting HIV because often the same instrument is used for many girls during the ceremony. At a recent girls meeting a colleague called Antoine and I were asked to leave to allow the women to talk freely.
Group photo at the end of a samp for young women (11-18 years of age), educating them about Aids and female circumcision through drama, games and song
So we went off for a walk to pray that this group of teenage girls from Guinea, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire would finally be open enough to talk about their own experiences of female circumcision. Pray that Antoine and his wife Marthe would be able to carry on this work with the young girls and be able to build up enough trust so that the girls can talk and have time for healing. These three examples show how HIV attacks our life, through blood, sex and birth. My prayer is that these people, and the many more affected and infected by HIV, will not only have access to the much needed care and treatment but also have access to receiving and growing in understanding of God’s unfailing love.
These people need to know that God has created them in a unique and marvellous way and our Christian response to those living with HIV has to be in showing them just that – life in all its fullness.
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To visit the world Aids Day website, click here.