urbana 06: day 5
I’m positive. HIV positive.
Actually, I was infected only for about 20 minutes.
Today, I finally visited the World Vision booth and went through the AIDS Experience (if you click on the link, you can go through the online version). I became Timothy, a young boy from Malawi. I experienced (or as close to experiencing it as I could) what he went through. How a travelling stranger comes and takes. Takes lives. Takes my father’s life. Then my mother’s. Then it comes for me. I get infected. All of this in the first 6 years of my life. I hear of how others who are positive are stigmatized and how one kid is even beaten by his father because he do doesn’t want to take care of a HIV positive child. As I receive my test result, saying I’m positive, I have to wait. Wait for someone to come by who isn’t infected to lead me out of the health clinic. The wait is surreal. The travelling stranger has come back. But this time, it’s back to take me. What do I do? Where do I go from here? After about 2 or 3 minutes of pondering all of this, a lady reaches out her hand, takes mine, and leads me out of the clinic. We come to the photos and stories of all the people who you can become (Olivia, Beatrice, Timothy & others). We’re then invited to the chapel to see the faces of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Finally, before we enter back into the western world from Africa, we’re given an opportunity to write a short prayer and post it on the wall. Hundreds of white sheets of paper with prayers scrawled upon them are already pinned up. I write mine, pin it, and once again, become Jonathan, a Chinese Canadian, with wealth ridiculously larger than most people in the world, and access to healthcare that most in Africa cannot access. But I’ll never forget Timothy or his story.
So, what’s next?
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
~ Micah 6:8 ~
urbana 06: day 3
Hmmm…yesterday’s post was rather long. I’ll try to keep this one short.
Same schedule as yesterday, just different passages and different speakers. Getting to know the other floor proctors more and some of the exhibitors too. Continuing to connect with them. Tonight, we had an extended session where the second half of the session focused on HIV/AIDS. I’ve been looking forward to this for the past few days and it didn’t disappoint. There were 3 scheduled speakers plus a surprise video from Bono, that’s right, U2′s Bono. First there were testimonies from Lisa Robinson (a nurse from Toronto who went to Africa to help educate people in Malawi about HIV/AIDS) and Kay Warren (Rick Warren’s wife who also went to Africa and experienced HIV/AIDS first hand). We then got surprised with a video of Bono exhorting us to join the ONE campaign and to use our voices to change the AIDS situation and drown him out. Lastly, we had Princess Kasune Zulu share about how HIV/AIDS has affected her and urged us to fight this, to be the visible image of the invisible God. Very moving message that got a standing ovation from everyone.
So what does this mean for me? Well, this AIDS thing has been on my mind for the last few months and this basically reaffirmed things for me, how I must not be silent, how we as a church cannot be silent. Talked with Mike Lau after the session here at the hotel and it was awesome to hear some of the ideas he’s got for what we can do as a fellowship to raise awareness about AIDS at UT like World Vision’s Acting on AIDS (AOA). Let’s be the generation that ends this AIDS pandemic.
