RESPONDING TO GOD’S CALL IN THE AGE OF AIDS

“In the 21st century, our global challenge is to hear and respond to the voice of God calling Christians to lead a new healing mission and ministry to eradicate HIV and AIDS and its devastating effects.”

                                                                          Donald E. Messer, Executive Director

 

Recent News & Upcoming Events
Aid to those in Need:  Myanmar

Using a connection developed in Asia, the Center was able to get $2,000 (USA) sent to Myanmar (Burma)  to help persons in that suffering country.  A friend of the Center will hand-carry the funds across the border for us to help people in need.   She is a woman from India and has been doing AIDS work in Burma.  She left Burma six days before the cyclone hit, so she knows the country well.

While the funds are for persons living with HIV and AIDS (PLHA's), I have given her discretion to use the funds as she deems necessary.  We don't require hungry persons to take a blood test before they are given food!  Or get a document from an orphan that proves his/her parents died from AIDS rather than a cyclone! 
 
Center Ambassadors, including Dr. Donald Messer, Executive Director, visited Burma several years ago.  What wonderful, caring people--who have suffered government oppression for some 40 years.  Thanks to donors in this country,  the book Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence has been published and distributed freely in Burma, both an English and Burmese edition. 
 
Let us remember the suffering of the people of Burma--and China--in the days ahead.
The Gift of H.O.P.E.: Helping Orphans by Providing Essentials 

For $150 you can support an AIDS Orphan for a year.  More than 1300 AIDS orphans have been identified in Meru, Kenya and through The Gift of Hope we all have a chance to help.  The Gift of Hope Program provides life's essentials to these chilren in six main areas:  health (including HIV/AIDS treaments), shelter, nutrition, education, saftey, and personal support.  Please contact us if you would like to donate to this special program and help a child to find HOPE.

By “Swinging At AIDS” During 2nd Annual Golf Tournament ,

An India AIDS Pediatric Clinic And

 Denver Hispanic Women And Children Will  Benefit

 
 
The Center’s 2nd Annual Golf Tournament is scheduled for August 19 at the Wellshire Inn.  Beneficiaries include the Center, an AIDS Pediatric Clinic in India, and Sisters of Color United For Education (Hispanic women’s HIV/AIDS program).   

The successful “Swinging at AIDS” tournament in 2007 with 84 golfers netted over $16,000.   The 2008 goal is 124 golfers  and net  income over $25,000. Needed are golfers, sponsors of holes, scholarships, silent auction items, golf carts, and lunch.  Sponsors, volunteers, and golfers should contact Claudia Svarstad at 303 594 8027. 

Cost is $125 per golfer, including green fees, carts, prizes, and lunch.  Win a car during the hole-in-one contest! Non-golfers are encouraged to send  donations,  volunteer, and  attend  the special program  luncheon at the historic Wellshire Inn.


        
The world’s worst health crisis in 700 years means:
  • In 2007, there were an estimated 33.2 million people living with HIV globally, increasing from 29.0 million in 2001.
  • Over 2 million people died due to AIDS in 2007.
  • Global HIV incidence (the number of new infections) in 2007 was approximately 2.5 million, with the majority of new infections still taking place in sub-Saharan Africa, where a total of 1.7 million became infected with HIV last year.
  • HIV infections increased almost 20% in East Asia between 2001 and 2007.
  • About 15 million children are AIDS orphans.  The total amount of orphans would be increasing even more rapidly if it were not for the fact that AIDS is now the biggest single cause of death of children younger than 5 years old.
  • The majority of HIV infections occur among women.

 

                                For more information, visit www.unaids.org



The world's worst health crisis in 700 years is a question of sustaining life in the face of overwhelming personal crises.  Statistics tend to be facts without faces, or as an African proverb declares “numbers without tears.” 

A grandmother near Durbin, South Africa, struggles to find enough food and energy to care for her six grandchildren, all orphaned because of HIV/AIDS. Now she is faced with an additional dilemma. Should she accept two more orphaned children who have nowhere else to go?

A young father in Chennai, South India, faces an impossible decision. He has enough money on a regular basis to purchase life-sustaining antiretroviral AIDS drugs for one person. But both his parents need them. Should he buy them for his father or his mother?

A man lies alone in a Costa Rican AIDS hospice. Afraid of the stigma and discrimination associated with the disease, does he dare tell his parents and friends?        

A seminary student in Asia learns on February 8, he has HIV.  That night he was expelled from his studies.  On February 9, he committed suicide.         

Tragically, these and many other stories of heartbreak, pain, and suffering are being replicated each day. Increasingly, the cry of the stricken is “Where is God?” or “Is there no one to help me and my family?”

The Center for the Church and Global AIDS
Responds by
Sharing Hope, Healing, and Help
Through programs of
Awareness, Education, Prevention, Care, and Treatment

 

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