hiv

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hello friends and family!

it has been a huge encouragement to read the letters, quick notes, and comments you've sent my way. so much love between all of us and its making me all warm inside! as if africa wasn't warm enough. haha.

i wanted to post a brief entry from my journal last week that has really got me thinking about GOD. specifically, the reality of GOD in the life of someone infected with hiv and then the reality of GOD in my own life. this is my attempt to process and chew through it all:


"this last thursday i saw for the first time in africa the face of hiv. she was beautiful. she hesitantly approached the pharmacy counter, a ritual she'd apparently come to know since her diagnosis but somehow had been unable to get used to, and asked for the medicine that delays death rather than conquers it. she had on a green ski coat, a white satin undershirt, and a knee-length denim dress, but what moved her wasn't her modern second-hand clothing or the cultural pride so evident in the unusually dark color of her skin. rather, this woman was moved by hiv. she walked tentatively and spoke only in whispers, casting her eyes to the ground whenever she summoned the courage to speak and leaned in looking for hope whenever she was spoken to. she stood apart from not a part of the rest of the patients in the waiting room and in her corner of self imposed and socially regulated isolation her hiv defined who she was and where she was going. how long has this virus been with her? was she a willing regular in the promiscuous realm of its domain or was it forced upon her without her consent and without a choice? does she cry each time she takes her medication or has she come to a life-giving agreement with the white powdered pills that promise her a future. will she quietly submit to its toll, vengefully spread its influence, or purposefully fight for her right to live? is she an outcast or rather one of many? more importantly, is she loved? my heart aches to know these answers. however, in our brief moment together, divided by a closed door and a white iron-barred window, we make eye contact not once and i'm left perplexed by this beautiful woman who i know carries the unbeatable disease. where is GOD in all of this? he doesn't, will not, and and has not defined this beautiful infected woman under the label of hiv, but what does that mean for her life? does she find hope in that or is her life in the slum more real that this GOD of abraham and jacob?

o lord, be thou my vision. let me not see her as dying but rather made alive by your hand. likewise, let me not concentrate on the brevity of my own life but rather on life in you. teach me and lead me precious GUIDE to live life purposefully alongside these modern day lepers, these social outcasts, these hiv untouchables. together, may we find grace and value in you. show us how to love each other, o JESUS. be with this woman and show her your face that discriminates not but loves its created. restore her to life HOLY SPIRIT and cultivate her testimony to be a beautiful garden of life rather than a desolate desert of hopelessness. thank you for what you do and the ways you do it, FATHER. amen"


i share my prayers with you all so that you may pray with us though we be worlds apart. i've come to see the power of prayer here ( i vibrantly prayed with my host family for a man named antony to be healed from a life-threatening infection and he was healed two days later ) and seek yours prayers as well as ways i can pray for you! in response to this encounter my rock-solid, faith-based answers have become questions and what i know about GOD has met for a brief moment with morality and death and i desperately need your prayers.

i love ya all and hope to hear from you soon!

peace to you

kyle


ps: i played with a 6 month old cheetah on saturday at an animal orphanage. i'll post pics later. it was sweet.

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