This post is in obedience to my mother and Lisa.

I have been hesitant to write about this, because it is so beyond my understanding and ability to communicate that I don't want to either trivialize it or make it seem over dramatic. I feel like many times people (and probably me on this blog) either romanticize Africa or make it seem like all it is can be summed up by watching Hotel Rwanda or Blood Diamond. As I share some stories with you about my continued experience visiting the Mukono Health Centre for their AIDS treatment day, I'm going to try my best to tell the truth about what I've experienced without hitting either of those two harmful extremes. There is an element of it, however, that cannot be expressed.

The past three Tuesday afternoons I have gone to the health center. I don't ever really want to go, because it's always both awkward and difficult. It's awkward because many times I sit down and try to start a conversation, and the person doesn't speak any English and I know five words in Luganda. I eventually just stand up and try to talk to someone else, and it's awkward. Reasons why it is difficult are to follow. One of the things I'm learning here though, is that being obedient to God and following Jesus often makes you do things you don't want to do, go places where you don't want to go, and face realities you'd rather didn't exist (or not know existed). The health center, for me, is that place, and HIV/AIDS is that reality. So I go. Reluctantly.

So, generally, when I go, the people I end up talking to speak decent English but aren't fluent. Three weeks ago I met a woman whose name was something like Vainob-- at least that's how it sounded. She had been in the hospital for a week, since when she had been diagnosed HIV+. She was a self-described "old woman" of 45 years with four children, the youngest of which is about done with high school. I sat and talked with her for an hour or so. She kept coughing really deep coughs. They sounds like bronchitis coughs if you've ever heard those. She hadn't told her kids about her diagnosis yet. She didn't want to. I don't blame her. Sometimes during the conversation I prayed with her. Then, later in the conversation she told me she was Muslim, which makes her willingness to pray with me very interesting. I have never had a patient there refuse to pray with me, despite their religion. When I left, she asked me a couple of times to remember to pray for her. I ask, now, the same of you.

The next week, March 17th, I talked with a woman who was there with her three year old daughter Gloria. Gloria was a beautiful little girl with braided hair who kept hiding from me. Her mother has been HIV+ for two of her daughter's three year. Thankfully, Gloria is not HIV+ (it is not always transmitted mother to child, thank God). While I was with her, during one of the silent moments of the conversation, I realized that she doesn't have much chance for living more than ten more years-- leaving her daughter, at best, at the age of 13. She also didn't speak English that well, but one thing she asked me, with an air of desperation I've only heard from other AIDS patients, was something like: "When are they going to find an antidote for HIV?" I had no idea how to respond. I told her I didn't know. I tried to tell her there was hope, and that she could live a positive life with HIV, but I couldn't find words that she could understand. I don't what I'm supposed to learn from all this, but literally all I had for her was my presence and my prayers. No doubt the driving force behind her fear and desperation is her daughter. The most heartbreaking thing though, the most heartbreaking question I have ever been asked, was when she asked me to take her daughter with me to America when I left. What could make a mother want to give up such a beautiful child? I can't even imagine. I can't really think of any suitable words to describe the essence of my hour with her. I was trying to show faith, hope, and love to a situation that seems to only grow fear and despair, a situation that caused a mother, out of love for her child, to want to send her child with me, a stranger, to America, the promised land. Before she left I prayed with her. Again, people are always willing to be prayed with and for.

On Tuesday, I went again. I had the privilege of praying with three women and one baby. I was talking with one woman for a while who was there with her baby girl, one year and two months old. She was a beautiful bald little baby in a pink dress. Both mother and child are HIV+. I didn't get to speak with the mother for very long, because she went to get treated, but she was really eager to have me pray for her. When I asked to pray with her, she reacted as if I had surprised her with a gift. Her face brightened up in a way that I've never seen anyone's in response to an offer of prayer. Perhaps I don't go with "nothing to give, nothing to offer" to the people I meet there, but instead perhaps prayer is the best thing I could offer someone. Her view of prayer, her response, gave me a whole different look at it that I'm not sure I've thought of before.

After talking with her, I spoke with one woman who is not a patient, but had come with a friend who is HIV+. It was really encouraging to see an HIV+ person there who had been brought by a friend, which doesn't happen often. A huge problem with AIDS is the stigma attached with it. It is often said that many people don't die from AIDS, they die from stigma. The woman with HIV's name is Jacqueline. She was very weak and frail. I sat between the two of them on a wooden bench just inside a doorway to the courtyard in between the health center's two buildings. Just outside, there was an old woman and a toddler waiting by the window to receive medicine. From the child's skin, it was obvious that she has HIV. From the woman's age it was obvious that she isn't the child's mother, perhaps the grandmother. Piecing all that together, the child is mostly likely HIV+ and has been orphaned by AIDS and is being taken care of by the old woman. One striking thing about it, was that all three of us inside, Jacqueline, her friend, and I were all turned towards the door watching the child. All three of us, with differing amounts of ability to know what that child's life is and will be like, were all seemingly taken aback by her condition. This is one of those things that I can't express. It was almost overwhelming, just to be in her presence, just to see her, just to be aware of her reality. I can't begin to describe the sorrow that comes by fully recognizing the lot of an HIV+ AIDS orphan. There's a sort of posture of sorrow that will always leave words seeming inadequate. I feel like every time I'm faced with these realities there is a sort of tug-of-war, a battle within me, between hope and despair. The joy in the sorrow fights on the side of hope. What the mother taught me about prayer fights on the side of hope and "hope does not disappoint us." Perhaps the only way life can be devoid of hope is if it is devoid of prayer. 

A strange, but wonderful, thing about this experience, is that despite how incredibly sorrowful I am when I leave, the rest of my interactions with people for the rest of the day are more joyful and loving. It has nothing to do anything with me, but says everything about the truth of the scriptures that say when you share in Christ's sufferings you share in his resurrection. You want to experience resurrection in your life, go seek out people who are suffering and suffer with them, show them that love exists and heals and transforms. Share your life with suffering people and your life will be life abundant indeed. 

So pray, find those who are suffering in your midst, and be with them. As Henri Nouwen says in Compassion, find those who are suffering and build a home there. That is the way of Christ. That is the way of hope.