Pre-marital counseling and blood tests have been routine for engaged American couples for more than a generation. Today, a pastor in Zambia requires couples to undergo AIDS tests before he agrees to conduct their marriage ceremonies. Rev. Raphael Silwamba said he hopes this requirement will increase awareness of HIV/AIDS, and decrease its devastation in his community.

“The ideas is not to bar anyone from getting married, “ Silwamba explains. “It’s simply to ensure that spouses and their parents understand the couple’s HIV-status.”

Rev. Silwamba is working to unite local churches toward a common stand against HIV/AIDS. In March his denomination, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God in Zambia, held a national symposium on the church’s role in addressing the pandemic in their own communities.