My senior of college, I did a program called hunger, HNGR, which stands for Human Needs and Global Resources. It was a 6 month program that I did in Cambodia and I worked with an organization that had a program for AIDS orphans. I spent time visiting with and teaching AIDS orphans English. But I would say my most direct contact with AIDS patients came through going on AIDS homecare visits to see AIDS patients with my Cambodian friend Sarim who was a nurse at the same organization. It was with her that I really saw and experienced what AIDS does to people physically and emotionally.
I went weekly with my friend Sarim on home visits and the longer I went with her, the more she explained to me what the life of someone with AIDS is like in Cambodia. While we were visiting one woman, Sarim told me that the woman who was taking care of her was not family. Her family was ashamed of her and disowned her. Her husband, who most likely gave her AIDS, divorced her and she never got to see her own son. Now this woman who was paid to take care of her was smoking in the corner of the yard while this woman dying of AIDS was lying in a hammock. Its hard to put into words what AIDS had done to her body. But her ribs were poking out of her chest, her eyes were almost swollen shut with puss, her legs and chest had open sores all over them and she could hardly utter a word. I would smile at her because that’s all I knew how to do. I was too afraid to touch her even though you can’t get AIDS just from touching a person. And the next time I saw her, the same line kept running through my head over and over “No one ever touches her. No one ever touches her unless they are paid to.” And so I let go of my fear and I began rubbing her arm and shoulders and she looked at me with an expression, I will never forget. It was gratitude, awe, and relief all in one look. It was in that moment that I realized that I as a follower of Jesus Christ I am not afforded the right to be immobilized by fear. I had to let the Holy Spirit use my hands and my feet to be Jesus to this woman or no one else would.
I became involved in this kind of work because God has place a desire in my heart to help these people and because I didn’t see how I could be a true follower of Jesus and not become involved in the lives of the poor and the needy. People with AIDS definitely are among the neediest. In Cambodia and since then, over and over again I kept reading verses in my Bible about how God cared for the sick and the poor and the lepers, and He did that for peoples physical needs just as much as he did for their emotional and spiritual needs. Galatians 5:6 says, “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”. I wanted my life to count and I knew no better way of my faith expressing itself through love than by touching these people and being with them.
This experience has had a huge impact on my life. Working with AIDS patients and seeing how Jesus loves them has become the way I try to see all of those that society and individuals reject. It’s made me know that wherever I am and and whatever I do, I want to express that love to those it is easy to go through life and never acknowledge. That’s why I am involved with Sowing hope, Internationals and that’s why I am going to Africa with our church in a couple of weeks. It’s a big part of why I am planning to go to nursing school. I think that sometimes God allows things to happen in the world to see how His body will respond. I think He is watching and waiting to see His church rise up and be Christ to the world’s rejected and despised.
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