March 22, 2004
A new song to sing
My area of ministry is around HIV/AIDS in South Africa. One aspect
of this work is the training and supporting of home-based care-workers
who go from house to house caring for those who are sick. Most
of their patients suffer from illnesses brought on by AIDS. The
ministry supports the caregivers—mostly women volunteers
though there are some younger men as well— by giving them
basic training, periodic training updates, and occasional days
of respite so they can come away for a day of rest, encouragement,
and spiritual care and counselling.
In addition to basic care kits, which include non-prescriptive
medicines and nursing care items, about once a week a ministry
nurse accompanies the volunteers, bringing food parcels and extra
hands to help. Daily these caregivers traverse the hills of Sweetwaters,
one of more rural township areas outside of my town of Pietermaritzburg
in KwaZulu Natal, rotating visits among the 700 families now needing
care. As one meanders on paths from one house to another, one
is struck by the stunning view, hills cascading off into the distance,
green and lush from recent rains. But what one is confronted with
inside the homes of the sick and poor creates a shocking contrast.
At times our team is joined by the occasional visitor from outside
the area or from overseas, including doctors and medical professionals
used to working with the sick. They are warned, “Expect
to see some things that may disturb you.” But no one is
ever quite ready—not completely—for what is to come.
Each visit holds the unexpected. Will the lady who crawled down
the hill last week to find us, desperate for food and whatever
medicine we had, still be alive? Would God have answered our prayer
for physical healing and renewed strength for the teenage girl
in bed, crying to die because of the painful sores that ran the
length of her body, starting at her mouth and emerging out the
other end? And the granny whose face is now lifeless, the graves
of twelve of her own—children, their spouses, grandchildren—never
far from sight, a constant reminder of loss so great the song
has left her for now. How will she be coping? Then, of the 700
or so we serve, how many had died in the last week? Twenty-five,
you say! Oh my—and more patients to replace them.
In the midst of such hopelessness God is there at work, healing,
restoring, and bringing a new song to the hearts of many. Like
the old, frail granny who had been visited and prayed for over
two years ago after suffering a stroke some time before that,
unable to move from her bed, waiting to die. The next week she
was up off her floor mattress, slowly walking around the pole
in the middle of her room, holding on as she sang joyfully to
God. A recent visit found her once again in bed due to another
stroke, but this time smiling and chatty, her songs filled with
love and joy as she looked forward to “going home to be
with Jesus.”
And about our teenage girl with hopeless sores, anguishing in
bed, begging to die? After caring for her, leaving what meagre
medications we had, prayer was given for comfort and healing.
On a return visit about two weeks later, this young girl who was
expected to have died, was hardly recognizable—walking around
with her hair braided, smiling and repeating over and over, “Jesus
is healing me.” A new song of life in the Lord—what
a joy to hear!
These songs of new life coming from the mouths of those they
visit daily—the songs of new life with Jesus—encourage
our caregivers in the midst of sickness and death all around them.
Healing comes in many forms, and not always as obvious as a physical
touch from the Lord. But our caregivers are the unsung heroes
in our time of HIV/AIDS, bringing the love and hope of Jesus to
those in despair; the joy of Jesus to those deeply entrenched
in sorrow; the peace of Jesus to those on the abyss of death,
filled to panic with fear of the unknown ahead; freedom in Jesus
to those oppressed by life and its difficulties, freedom from
superstition to truth; and the comfort of Jesus to those abandoned
and alone.
Do you hear it too? It’s there—the song of life,
even in the midst of the pain and death brought on by HIV and
AIDS.
Cindy Easterday
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
61
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