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Raising Awareness of AIDS among World Vision Supporters

By Jennifer Lytle

FEDERAL WAY, May 15, 2003 — Yesterday afternoon, nearly 200 World Vision child sponsors were treated to punch and cookies at the organization’s headquarters and thanked for all they are doing in the lives of the poor. World Vision president Rich Stearns offered an impressive list of accomplishments from last year including clean water for more than 750,000 people and immunizations for one-half million children. He then turned to a critical concern, which he has been addressing throughout the Seattle area the past 10 days—the AIDS pandemic.

Stearns set the stage by talking about his own introduction to the issue of HIV/AIDS. In June 1998, he left a job with the Lenox corporation and assumed the presidency of World Vision U.S. Two months later, he traveled to the community of Rakai, Uganda, where 60,000 children had lost their parents to AIDS. “I was uncomfortable,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say to them. I cried most of that trip.”

Stearns was especially moved by three boys, 13, 11, and 10, who lived on their own in a crumbling hut with no running water. “It was the most unnatural thing I think I’ve ever seen. They were totally alone in the world.” The boys had lost both parents to AIDS and had no one to care for them, but World Vision was offering help. The oldest was a sponsored child; the boys had their school fees paid so they could attend class; they received seeds and tools to start a garden.

Permanently affected, Stearns returned home asking why America doesn’t know about HIV/AIDS. He committed to raise awareness and do something about the devastating impact of the disease. Stearns told his audience that AIDS has already produced more casualties than World War I and World War II. “Every week, we have a Vietnam,” he said, referring to the 58,000 deaths that occur weekly.

“Caring for widows and orphans is critical to our mission and ministry in the world,” Stearns asserted. The Hope Initiative—World Vision’s program of prevention, care and advocacy—demonstrates that the organization is on the job and doing something in response to HIV/AIDS. He cautioned that people should not succumb to hopelessness or overwhelming numbers such as the 13 million children who are orphans because of AIDS. Instead, World Vision supporters should look at 13 million individual buckets and ask how many they can fill. In so doing, people can change the world “one child at a time.” The question, he maintained, is whether we are willing.

A powerful video showed the tragedies of one mother with two young children dying of AIDS and another woman caring for seven orphaned grandchildren. The narrator asserted, “We must stand beside our brothers and sisters around the world.”

Next, Princess Kasune Zulu, a Zambian woman, shared her personal story of losing her parents to AIDS and then becoming HIV-positive herself. In the midst of these difficulties, Zulu heard the Lord calling her to be a voice. “I decided to break the stigma attached to people with HIV,” she declared. Taking her message to churches, schools, corporations and vulnerable groups, she learned “it’s not about what people will think…It’s about what we are doing.” She urged, “Please do not give up.”

When asked what young people can do, Stearns answered, “Educate yourself. Go home and tell your parents what you learned about AIDS.” Closing on a note of hope, the speakers said that they are seeing things change because people are talking about HIV/AIDS and learning about prevention. Stearns asked the donors in attendance to become “Ambassadors of Hope” by encouraging others to sponsor a child living in an area impacted by HIV/AIDS.
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