What’s wrong with this picture? Three out of four of Zambia’s 9 million people call themselves Christians, and yet AIDS is ravaging their population. “We recognize,” writes Diane Marshall, SIM’s HIV/AIDS Consultant, “that this pandemic reveals the need for teaching genuine discipleship in Zambia’s churches. At the same time, the nation’s Christian heritage provides a wonderful opening for AIDS workers and community leaders to discuss the problem and look for solutions together.” She continues: “Christian organizations should engage in life skills education. Youth, as the age group most affected, need to be involved in decision making and peer education.”

SIM is a partner member in a ministry known as APPLE (AIDS Prevention Plus Life Education), along with Scripture Union (SU) and the Evangelical Church in Zambia (ECZ).” Several SIM workers are helping APPLE’s Peer Educators (PEs) take the message of discipleship to youth in the schools and communities of Zambia. The missionaries mobilize and train the Peer Educators, and then help make arrangements for their presentations. The goal is to equip young people to make wise choices and to empower them to resist the behaviors that would expose them to HIV. They use the Life Skills program developed by SU, which includes lessons in self image, communication, sexual behavior, love, relationships, family issues, and the facts about HIV.

As APPLE staff members go from school to school to make arrangements for the coming year, they find the doors wide open. Their faith goal is huge: that death from AIDS will not be the inevitable end of Zambia’s people, but that biblical living by Zambian youth will transform their future.

Give

APPLE Project # ZM 94248