Missions and AIDS: Facing Down the Deadly Juggernaut

by David Sorley

The decade of the 1980s was born with the sound in its ears of an indistinct rumbling as of distant thunder. As the decade winds to a close, the deadly juggernaut of AIDS, virtually unknown ten years ago, rolls relentlessly across the face of continents, threatening not only the health of their inhabitants, but the political and economic future of entire nations.

The decade of the 1980s was born with the sound in its ears of an indistinct rumbling as of distant thunder. As the decade winds to a close, the deadly juggernaut of AIDS, virtually unknown ten years ago, rolls relentlessly across the face of continents, threatening not only the health of their inhabitants, but the political and economic future of entire nations.

AIDS has been reported in more than 160 countries. Because it is spread by healthy carriers who may remain asymptomatic for several years, it is highly probable the deadly disease has already infiltrated every country in the world. World health experts estimate five to 10 million people are infected with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. On average, the infected person may be expected to develop AIDS sometime during the next eight to ten years.

HISTORY’S MOST DEADLY PANDEMIC
Worldwide epidemics, or pandemics, are not new. In recent years, influenza and cholera have swept around the globe, felling hundreds of thousands. But no other pandemic has been as deadly or insidious as AIDS.

An AIDS carrier may spread the virus to scores of sexual or intravenous drug contacts for over five years before anyone becomes aware of the hazard. It is an especially deadly disease. Although it is too early to tell how many of those who become infected will eventually die of AIDS-related complications, some experts wan the mortality rate could be as high as 100 percent.

A mysterious disease that sprung onto the world stage from seemingly nowhere, the AIDS issue has been a political football, tossed from one country to another in a sort of "blame game." As a result, some countries initially were reluctant to admit publicly they had a problem. Ignored, the disease grew wildly in many places before health education and disease control programs began.

ECONOMIES AT RISK
The potential economic impact of AIDS is incalculable. It is an expensive, so far incurable, disease that could bankrupt not only the health insurance industry, but the health care programs of entire Third-world countries.¹

AIDS strikes selectively, targeting the young men and women who tend to be the primary victims of any sexually-transmitted disease. In many developing countries these young people from the educated and highly-skilled work force on whom the economies depend. Living and working in cities far from home, many fall into immorality, exposing themselves unwittingly to the threat of AIDS. Some countries have already lost key physicians, government leaders and other vitally-needed technicians to AIDS.²

Some entire industries are being crippled as infection spreads among workers. Serosurveys (AIDS blood testing of large groups of people) in Zambia have shown a large and growing proportion of miners to be infected.³

Developing countries dependent on one or two major industries are especially vulnerable to the ravages of AIDS. Transportation industries worldwide may be expected to suffer as seamen and truck drivers, both high-risk groups because of their multiple sexual partners, fall victim.

Already in some countries thousands of young children have been orphaned by AIDS. Social welfare systems bear crushing new burdens as family breadwinners fall victim. In some villages, nearly an entire generation has been lost and elderly people who counted on their children for support now struggle to raise their orphaned grandchildren.

AIDS is affecting children even more directly. One Zambian doctor predicted 6,000 babies would be born with AIDS in 1988. Half were expected to die within a year of birth.

How do these present and future scenarios impact missions today? Perhaps most directly affected are medical missionaries and their agencies.

TACT AND OPPORTUNITY
Some nations continue to deny reports of AIDS within their borders. Medical missionaries who hope to continue their work within these countries must be careful not to alienate their hosts by disseminating sensitive information and statistics on AIDS.

On the other hand, countries that openly admit their problem will welcome healthy personnel with expertise in AIDS control. Mission agencies with their twin medical and spiritual/moral focus are eminently qualified to address AIDS education issues.

Nevertheless, missionaries must exercise wisdom in dealing not only with the government, but also with the national church. Church leaders often reflect the attitudes of their government, and may be as fearful and poorly informed as anyone else in society. Local Christian leaders should be involved every step of the way as missionaries or Christian health professionals approach government authorities for permission to provide health education, as they seek advice, and make plans.

If the local church is to fulfill its God-given role in society, it will be necessary to educate and challenge church leaders. Initially, the horror of AIDS becomes known in a country, church members may pull back from witnessing to high-risk groups like prostitutes, homosexuals or drug abusers and they may be tempted to shun AIDS victims.

Yet, it is here the church may have its greatest witness to society. Missions may serve both by teaching and example.

NEW STRATEGIES FOR A NEW DISEASE
The entrance of AIDS onto the world scene already is affecting missionary medical strategy. Faced with the high cost of treating AIDS victims, mission hospital administrators are forced to make painful economic decisions. Will they put their limited funds into saving people with malaria and pneumonia and allocate fewer resources to treating people with AIDS? Should they build hospices to treat people with incurable disease like ADIS? Or, should they work with families of victims to support home care?

What about the vast potential of AIDS prevention programs as opposed to purely curative ministries? Medical missions may even consider redeploying some primarily curative personnel to preventative programs.

Because of the increased danger of infection to medical workers who handle potentially-infected human blood and body secretions, missions must provide adequate education and safeguards for those who work in mission hospitals.4

As a result of the high mortality rate of AIDS victims, medical workers sometimes become discouraged. One missionary doctor working in an African country became deeply depressed as the number of his patients with AIDS increased. As a Christian and a doctor he wanted to be able to do something to stem the tide of the disease.

Finally, he devised a preventative program that incorporated the Scriptures and medical facts related to AIDS. He enlisted broad denominational involvement and was able to get his program into all the secondary schools in the country.

He turned his discouragement into a vital new evangelistic and health outreach among the young people most vulnerable to the deadly disease.

Mission strategists must consider the importance of reaching the 15 to 24 year old age group considered most susceptible to AIDS. Sometimes a short-sighted goal of rapid church growth has resulted in a de-emphasis on youth and student ministries, since this age group is mobile and often does not remain in the local church. But neglecting this group could consign many 15-to-24 year olds to death by AIDS and hell.

TRAGEDY AND OPPORTUNITY
The AIDS pandemic may be expected to impact the missions enterprise in numerous ways. Although medical missionaries are at low risk of contracting the disease and nonmedical missionaries are even less likely to be infected, all missionaries may be expected to be personally affected in some ways by AIDS. The pandemic already has impacted personnel policies in some missions, and other groups are working on new policies.

Perhaps more importantly, some mission agencies are reformulating their goals in the light of AIDS, in order to reach out to those most in need and to take advantage of opportunities for ministry.

Surely AIDS is a tragedy. Yet God can turn even this tragic pandemic into a platform from which to proclaim his love and mercy to the world. AIDS reminds a reluctant world of its morality. Against a backdrop of death and judgment, Christians must share the Good News of forgiveness through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Because the high risk behaviors that spread AIDS are so difficult to change apart from the power of God, Christians have a welcome message which must be shared with those who are trapped in destructive lifestyles and habits.

The stigma of AIDS sets apart in the eyes of the world those who will lovingly minister to the new "untouchables" or our societies. Christians have been presented and shunned by their own people. A Christian medical tradition begun years ago with loving care of those infected by leprosy may be continued in ministry to society’s new lepers.

The rapid exponential increase in AIDS cases reminds us of the urgent imperative of missions to go into our AIDS-plagued world to persuade men and women to come back to God, following Jesus in the power of the new life his Spirit gives.

As the juggernaut of AIDS throws its shadow across the closing of this decade, Christians can rise up to grasp courageously and creatively new opportunities to minister the live of Jesus Christ to a bruised and dying world.

Endnotes
1. "An interview with WHO’s Jonathan Mann," The Epidemiology Monitor (Dec. 1987/Jan. 1988), p. 2.
2. Ibid, p. 3.
3. Panos Dossier No. 1, AIDS and the Third World, the Panos Institute, (2nd edition, March 1987), p. 45.
4. "Aids, the Developing World, and MAP International," Map International Report (Feb./March, 1988), p. 1

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