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“Our Stories” is a regular feature highlighting someone associated with WBC’s Heart for AIDS Initiative—sometimes our own church members, sometimes our partners in other parts of the world.
Our Stories
Judy Frey: Off to Kenya Soon!
WBCer Judy Frey, a psychologist with a heart for AIDS, was recently commissioned as a WBC missionary and will be headed to Kenya with SIM in November.
By Judy Frey
Posted September 2007
God has blessed me through each of you, walking with me through many seasons of life in the past months. God has clearly revealed the purpose and power of the many seasons of life, such as:
Experiencing the death of my dear, God-revering, and precious mom in January, and then the deaths of a friend and cousin in May have deeply revealed my need for the endless depth of God’s presence, encouragement, energy, wisdom, strength, forgiveness and inner healing. How blessed I was to have incredible support of family and friends during this time. How profound to experience the season of joyous grief—joyous in knowing that my mom is wholly in the presence of God, completely well and strong, and grief from missing her joyous laughter, profound prayers and godly wisdom. This is a precious season in bringing my faith to a stronger and deeper level, knowing that God is completely dependable and able to handle the deepest hurts, toughest questions and the profoundness of this season. How precious that God has provided this time prior to my leaving for Kenya—both in the process of final earthly good-byes and in allowing me to have greater depth of understanding for the multitudes I will work with who experience death and are becoming orphans on a daily basis.
In March I attended an International Conference on HIV/AIDS Adherence. What a great time of reuniting with friends from SIM and networking with Kenyan government officials involved with HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. June and August brought profound joy as I was commissioned through Wheaton Bible Church and College Church. These were precious times of recounting God’s story in my life; sharing His vision for the work in Kenya; and knowing the support of family, friends and the church body. And on August 5, I experienced a knee replacement! What a fabulous time of experiencing God’s healing and precious family time. In answer to prayers, after five weeks of PT, I am able to walk “normally” again!
Praise God! I learned last week that I only need pledges of another $75 per month to have my monthly support completely covered! What a miracle. I praise God for the hundreds of you who have partnered with me in prayer and for those who have already committed to financial support as well. What a journey we will all be on as God takes us forward to Kenya! I look forward to giving you monthly updates of His work in Kenya and in me. At this point, I plan to be in Kenya by the middle of November. Through you, God is also providing finances for a vehicle. At this point, about $8,000 of the needed $15,000 has been given for such. Thank you!
To learn more about Judy, click here.
Overcoming the Stigma
Posted February 2007
James Mwangi, a young man who works with one of our partner ministries in Kenya, is HIV-positive. Initially shunned by family and friends, he’s now a leader in the fight.
By Margaret LeMaire
Parkview Church in Nakuru, Kenya—one of our partner ministries—offers a variety of services to its neighbors, many of whom live in the slum-ridden community surrounding the church.
One of those services is a VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) clinic, where clients can be tested for HIV and counseled on what steps to take next.
James Mwangi, one of Parkview’s VCT counselors, could have used that kind of service over a decade ago when—before he met Christ—he contracted the HIV virus after making some poor choices in his behavior.
Out of secondary school in 1995, James started engaging in risky behaviors, and got sick. Doctors told him he had AIDS; they instructed James’ family to feed him well, and to separate themselves from him, not a sharing a bed or wash basins. Fortunately, his mother did not follow the separation instructions, as they were unnecessary and only increased the stigma. The family did sacrifice to provide a good diet for James and he regained his strength.
His brother was fearful of contracting AIDS, due to having to share a bed and wash basin with James. Feeling unwanted by his brother and a financial burden to his parents, James ran away. After several years—including an attempted return to his family—James felt a pull toward God. He started going to church, and at a Christian camp, he heard the gospel from Parkview pastor David Maina. James accepted Christ as his Savior.
Damaris Kagira, who now heads up Parkview’s VCT program, was a speaker at that camp, talking about HIV/AIDS—and busting some of the myths about it. Encouraged by her speech, James decided he wanted to share his story with youth to help them make good choices, including abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within it. James also came to understand the difference between being HIV-positive and having full-blown AIDS. James learned that he was only HIV-positive, and felt he had a new lease on life.
James went to be reconciled to his family. He told them openly that he had HIV. They did not want to hear it, as they were living in denial. They believed only the very promiscuous were infected with AIDS, but not their son. They were also afraid of the social repercussions if neighbors and friends found out. But eventually they came to accept his disease.
Nonetheless, James’ brother still lives in fear of AIDS. His brother’s child loves James and follows him around whenever he visits. Once when she reached out to eat some food off of James’ plate, the brother freaked out and prevented her from eating off his plate. Living with the stigma hurts.
The first five years, James lived with HIV in silence, but in the last five years he has spoken openly to youth and became a VCT counselor. He does not tell every client that he is HIV-positive, but at times it is the right thing to do and he can give them encouragement in ways others can’t.
James is also a member of the home-based care group at Parkview Church. This is a group of 50-plus people with HIV who meet weekly for a time of fellowship and support, and a health talk. They also work on making income-generating crafts (bead work and basket crocheting from plastic bags), and participate in an internal microfinance scheme called a “merry-go-round.” It is important for them to know that there are still things they can do to generate some income, as those with HIV can begin to feel helpless and hopeless. Each member of the group contributes to a common pot weekly; the group decides to either save the money till the pot gets bigger, or they vote on who gets some help that week based on need.
When James first began disclosing his illness, he felt isolated and lonely, even while at the church. People did not invite him over; they did not totally accept him due to fear and stigma. Some viewed him as a “big sinner.” He was lonely. But God brought a Christian wife into his life, a single mother of three who was also HIV-positive. They have had a fourth child, and praise God, all four are HIV-negative.
James has been blessed with good health and is feeling good today. He is now very active in the life of the church. He is on the music team and is an example of God’s redemptive power in someone’s life.
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It's What I Can Do
Posted January 2007
What can one person do in the fight against HIV/AIDS? One of our church members discovered a surprisingly simple answer: Just do whatever you can.
By Mark Moring
In September of 2005, my wife and I led a team of Wheaton Bible Church members to Kenya on a short-term missions trip as part of WBC’s Heart for AIDS Initiative. We were there to serve in any way we could, in hopes of making at least a tiny difference in the fight against this global pandemic.
We’re not doctors or nurses or health workers. We’re not counselors or pastors. We’re not experts on HIV/AIDS by any stretch of the imagination. We’re just sinful Christians whose hearts are broken by what we see in the world around us—millions dying annually of a preventable disease, and millions of children left orphaned.
So while we were in Kenya for those two weeks—painting the walls of a new hospital, visiting orphans, praying with adults who have HIV/AIDS—I asked myself on several occasions, “Just how did I get from there to here?”
How did I, a journalist who loves his suburban comforts and generally avoids taking risks, end up in Africa, where the AIDS problem is at its absolute worst?
The answer is surprisingly simple: I was there because it was something I could do. But let me back up a few years and tell you how I got to that point . . .
Rocking my world
I’ve always been deeply moved by music, by everything from Bach to rock. I love the classic hymns, I love folk music, and I love the kind of music that used to make my mom scream up the stairs, “Turn that noise down!” I know—some of us just never outgrow some things.
But in recent years, rock music has literally changed my life. Well, more specifically, a couple of rock musicians—Sonny Sandoval, whom you’ve probably never heard of, and Bono, whom you probably have.
Sandoval is the lead singer of a hard rock group called P.O.D. The band members are Christians, but you won’t usually hear their songs on Christian radio. Their lyrics are more subtle with the message of faith, as part of their mission to reach an unchurched, unsaved, and often unreached audience.
P.O.D.’s concerts are electrifying (I’ve seen them four times), and afterward, they usually hang around for hours meeting with teens; that’s when they really open their hearts and share the gospel story. Hundreds, if not thousands, of struggling teens and twenty-somethings have come to Christ through P.O.D.’s music and street-wise ministry.
As a journalist who covers music for various outlets at Christianity Today, I’ve interviewed Sandoval a couple of times. The first time we talked after a Chicago concert in 2001, he said some things that rocked my world and made me take a long hard look at my own “mission” in life.
We were discussing the band’s impact on a mostly secular audience, and why they were so effective at reaching the lost. Sonny’s answer (also found in this story I wrote on the band) hit me hard:
“We're not a typical Christian band; we've got dreadlocks and tattoos. We're not trying to impress parents or grandparents. We're trying to reach the people where they are—people like us, the bottom dwellers. That's the life we know.
“We live in a world that hates God. But we're servants of God, and we're going to serve these kids. God can use us down on the front lines.”
Then Sonny held one hand to his chest and said, “This is the kingdom of heaven.” He held his other hand far out in front of him: “This is the world.” Then he moved his hand from his chest to a point about halfway between the two extremes: “And this is the fence. P.O.D. has always been on that fence, bent over at the waist, trying to reach people.
“We've got people holding our feet on one side, chaining us down in the kingdom. That way, we can reach over the fence and grab these people—by their hair, by their fingers, by their bootstraps, whatever—and bring them into the kingdom of heaven. That's what God has called us to do.”
A moment later, our conversation ended, and Sonny gave me a warm embrace. I left the building, went back to my car, got in, shut the door, put the key in the ignition—and started weeping.
“God,” I prayed aloud, “my world is way too small. I go to Wheaton Bible Church. I work at Christianity Today. I’m with Christians all the time. I live in an evangelical bubble. Shatter my bubble, and show me how to reach over the fence, to the other side.”
That was the first breakthrough. Before long, I was regularly volunteering at an outreach ministry in Carol Stream and a homeless shelter in St. Charles.
Then, a couple years later, along came Bono with an even stronger message . . .
What’s my currency?
As a long-time fan of the Irish rock band U2, I was already familiar with Bono (their lead singer), well before I’d even heard of P.O.D. About 5-6 years ago, I noticed Bono becoming more and more vocal about social issues, but it wasn’t until a March 2003 cover story in Christianity Today that I really took note.
In that story, Bono discussed his own faith and how it motivated him to want to make a difference in the world, especially with AIDS in Africa. Three of his quotes from that story particularly stood out for me:
- He said the church today will be remembered for “how we let an entire continent go up in flames while we stood around with watering cans. Or not. . . . God is on his knees to the church on this one. God Almighty is on his knees to us, begging us to turn around the supertanker of indifference on the subject of AIDS.”
- “If the church doesn't respond to this, the church will be made irrelevant. It will look like the way you heard stories about people watching Jews being put on the trains. We will be that generation that watched our African brothers and sisters being put on trains.”
- “There's nothing worse than a rock star with a cause. But celebrity is currency and [I] want to spend it this way.”
Those first two quotes were effective exhortations, strong words from a modern-day “prophet” trying to shake up an apathetic Western church. But it was that third quote, the one about “celebrity as currency,” that hit me especially hard.
For me, it simply sparked this question: “What’s my currency?” I’m no celebrity. I’m not a wealthy man. I don’t have access to presidents and prime ministers and sold-out arenas, as Bono does.
But what is my currency? What do I have that I can “spend” on this issue?
That was my burning question.
‘It’s what I can do’
About the same time I started wrestling with that question, Wheaton Bible Church started wrestling with it too: What can we do as a church to make a difference in the AIDS crisis? What is our “currency” for this global emergency?
The church launched an AIDS Task Force to begin tackling that question in earnest. I didn’t have any answers, but I had a passion. So I joined the Task Force. Why? Because it was something I could do. I’ve attended almost every monthly meeting—brainstorming possibilities, praying, learning, helping our team make decisions about how we, as a church, can be involved in finding solutions.
Then came the opportunity to lead the short-term missions trip to Kenya, as part of WBC’s AIDS ministry. As my wife and I interviewed potential candidates for the team, one of them said something that was profound in its simplicity. When he’d heard that one of the team’s primary duties would be painting walls in a new hospital, he took note.
When asked why he wanted to be part of the team, he answered, “Because it’s something I can do. I don’t know what I can do to help the world AIDS crisis, but I can paint, and since that’s a big part of what this trip is about, I can do that. It’s something I can do.”
Simple as that: It’s something I can do.
That’s my mantra these days, as I try to figure out what I—just one person—can do in the picture that’s far too big for me to grasp. I’m no doctor. I’m no expert. I’m no celebrity with an audience, and I don’t have much money to give.
But I can do what I can do. I can attend meetings. I can learn. I can read. I can pray. I can go on the occasional missions trip. I can talk to friends at WBC and to adult communities, trying to stir others to get interested, perhaps involved. And I can put my editorial skills to work on this website, by spreading the word to the WBC family—and hopefully beyond—about what we as a church are doing about HIV/AIDS around the world.
“For we are God’s workmanship,” Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10, “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
My small “works” in this area aren’t very much. But it’s what I can do.
How about you?
Mark Moring, a member of WBC’s AIDS Task Force, also manages our Heart for AIDS website. He is Christianity Today’s online editor of music and film.
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