 Driving
on a muddy, dirt road to Shinyanga, Tanzania, I reflected on the dirt roads
which I grew up walking on in Lincolnville, SC. I thanked God for my journey
that brought me from the dirt roads of my humble beginnings to those I now
travel in distant lands. As we passed the beautiful landscape of Africa, I
sat reflecting, centering my thoughts on the increasing parallel of the AIDS
epidemic between Africans and African Americans.
My heart grew sad as I considered the rate of HIV infection among African
Americans living in some communities, like Harlem, New York and Birmingham,
Alabama. In far too many African American communities the rate of HIV infection
has now increased, and in some cases surpassed, the rate of HIV infections
in some African communities. How can this be? How is it that citizens of
one of the richest nations on the planet are now suffering from HIV/AIDS
as our brothers and sisters living in the remote villages of Africa? How
is it that there are thousands of American citizens waiting to get on a
list in hopes that they one day will get available HIV treatment so that
they too might live to see their children graduate from high school?
As I smelled the red clay of the dirt road, I heard the cries of both
my African and African American brothers and sisters living and dying from
HIV/AIDS. However, it appears that the world, including governments, philanthropists
and many members of the African American family, have only responded to
the cries of our brothers and sisters on the homeland. Have the distant
cries of Africans silenced the cries of their neighbors next door in America?
I certainly applaud those who are doing something for someone somewhere-anywhere!
It seems that while we are saturated with news reports of this epidemic
in Africa, we are less educated about the devastation of this disease right
in our own communities in the US.
As we, once again, give our call to prayer for the healing of AIDS, let
us join our hearts and hands with our national leaders, who are standing
together to pray and act on behalf of the cries and suffering of the children,
men and women in our African American neighborhoods as well as those in
distant, rural communities of Africa.
On March 2-8, 2008, we are turning our hearts and minds to the epidemic
in the African American community. We are asking every pastor throughout
Black America’s neighborhoods to join in this interdenominational
bond, along with our national leaders, to speak out against complacency,
denial and do-nothing attitudes regarding HIV/AIDS. We have been living
in the midst of a life-threatening crisis for the past 25 years. Our children,
ages 13-19, are now over 60% of those teens living with HIV in the United
States and in some Black communities, our mothers and fathers - the elderly
- have HIV infection rates higher than those of our children. Our gay brothers,
fathers, uncles have been screaming for attention to the AIDS epidemic
for more than a quarter of a century, while our mothers, sisters and aunts
have been silently dying from shame and AIDS.
Kill the Silence! Stand up! Act Now! Get Tested for HIV! Get and stay
on treatment if HIV positive! Give some of your time and resources! Fight
HIV/AIDS first in your neighborhoods and then the greater, global village!
Do something NOW! Swing open wide the doors of our churches and hearts!
Let God’s love pour out and in!
As Always, I AM yours in the Consciousness of Abiding Faith!
Pernessa C. Seele
Founder/CEO |
