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For the past six years Wheaton Bible Church has partnered with Kenyan churches and WBC missionaries Scott and Barb Harbert to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to care for those infected and affected by it. Through this church-wide initiative, we have helped care for hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS and have trained thousands in HIV/AIDS prevention through church-based, Gospel-centered programs. One of the hallmarks of this initiative is the mutuality and respect fostered between the Wheaton Bible Church community and the communities we partner with in Kenya. This year we are helping our Kenyan partners grapple with how to use local resources to expand and sustain their ministries. We are also excited about the prospect of deepening the relationships we have formed. We look forward to seeing a day when HIV/AIDS is no longer ravaging communities around the world.
As we help our partners in Kenya to become more sustainable (meaning that we want to enable them to continue ministry using local resources), we are actively seeking where else in the world God is calling us to join in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
In the early part of 2000, evangelicals were facing the facts about AIDS in Africa. We came to understand that 70 percent of the 40 million people in the world living with AIDS live in Africa, and we learned that an estimated 22.5 million people would be living with HIV in Africa by the end of 2007. AIDS is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, killing an estimated 1.6 million people in 2007 alone. In the same year, another 1.7 million became infected with HIV.
Sub-Saharan Africa has a large and fast-growing evangelical population, which means that many of those suffering from the HIV / AIDS crisis are our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Bible tells us that when part of the Church suffers, we all suffer. Therefore WBC felt compelled to respond. In early 2004, WBC missionaries Scott and Barb Harbert (serving with Africa Inland Mission) helped facilitate a partnership between WBC and churches in Nakuru, Kenya. They formed a board of Kenyan pastors and missionaries and began overseeing this ministry called the Nakuru AIDS Initiative (NAI).
Since 2004, we have partnered with churches in Kenya to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to care for those infected and affected by it. We are currently focused on helping our partners utilize local resources for their ministries, investing monthly funds that support many HIV / AIDS ministries in Nakuru and deepening the relationships that we have formed over the past six years.
We hope to continue this fight to prevent HIV/AIDS through sound teaching, accountability and continued care for people suffering from illnesses related to HIV/AIDS. We have seen Christians in Nakuru become caregivers to families in their communities that are suffering with illness and enduring losses of loved ones. And we have seen God use these Christians to transform their communities through their active engagement with the poor, suffering, and sick. We hope to continue this ministry in Kenya and in other parts of the world.
The global AIDS crisis has been described as one of the most difficult challenges facing humanity. In Kenya we and our partners have used a five-pronged approach in order to help mobilize the Church to address this challenge head on.
Encourage local churches to emphasize the value of living a pure life—focusing on abstinence before marriage, faithfulness in marriage, and the importance of knowing your HIV status. Help equip the local church to educate people about AIDS and how to make good decisions in life. Train school teachers and church leaders to teach a character-based curriculum in schools and the church. WBC partners with the Nakuru AIDS Initiative, which conducts seminars for hundreds of church leaders on church-based HIV/AIDS ministry.
Help congregations care for orphans through finding church guardians and helping provide food and after-school care. Help widows become self-sufficient through job training and income-generating activities. WBC has supported and helped build the Hope for Life Center directed by Josephine Kiarii. At the center WBC sponsors vocational training in 12 different skills. Kenyans working at the center feed and tutor 125 children and give counsel and aid to single mothers and guardians.
Help support churches that are caring for people who are sick and dying of AIDS. Provide training for churches and medical facilities to better serve their communities by helping people process grief through home-based care groups. WBC supports church leadership seminars on home-based support groups. One such church has 40 people who meet every Monday evening. In 2008, WBC sent Judy Frey, a psychologist, as a missionary to assist the church in Kenya with the psychological effects of HIV/AIDS and also to train pastors in how to effectively minister to their congregations. WBC also has supported the training of local health professionals who are able to medically care and gain proper treatment for people with HIV/AIDS (including using anti-retroviral medicine).
Encourage the area churches to open VCT Centers in their church buildings and neighborhoods to provide affordable HIV testing and Christian counseling. WBC has supported the training of dozens of Kenyans to work in VCT centers and has supported Kenyan churches by helping build these centers. One of the centers tests and counsels about 175 clients each month. Clients receive help in getting their anti-retroviral medications if they are HIV positive.
Provide training in local micro-enterprise efforts including internal loan systems, health and community development training, skills training for those without marketable skills and good farming practices. WBC has supported various activities, training and endemic programs designed to generate income for those living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. The aim of these ministries is to create sustainable sources of income and to restore dignity to those who have been devastated by the crisis.