The AIDS pandemic takes its toll everywhere. SIM personnel are working alongside our partner churches to relieve suffering, help stop the spread of HIV, and give the good news of eternal hope to those who are infected (30+ million worldwide) and affected (millions of AIDS orphans and many more millions of impoverished survivor families). The four components of HOPE are: Home-based care; Orphans and vulnerable children care; Prevention; and Enabling the church. Here are a few of our HOPE for AIDS ministries. Learn more at hopeforaids.org

	Dr. Gebre‐Hiwot talking with Mulumebet and her two children, Mikias (foreground) and Tsion

Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission

Mulumebet’s employer forced her into a sexual relationship, giving her a son and HIV. When she became pregnant again, she went to a government health center for the medicine that could prevent transmission of the virus to her baby during delivery. But she was too sick to keep the medicine down, and when she went to an understaffed hospital to deliver the child, she was unable to get a replacement dose. The baby girl, Tsion, was born on the hospital’s reception room floor, and in the process she contracted HIV. This was before SIM and the Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church (EKHC) launched the HOPE for AIDS program.

Now the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) program exists to prevent such tragedies. Dr. Henok Gebre-Hiwot directs this project, part of the Medan Addis Ababa program, which covers the entire city of Addis Ababa with the blessing of the government. A short course of antiretroviral drugs, in conjunction with replacement feeding, can reduce the risk of HIV transmission by up to 50%. But replacement feeding raises painful dilemmas for the mother in cultures where breastfeeding is expected, highlighting the need for education and attitude change.

Project Positive Ray

South Africa has at least 5.5 million people living with HIV and 1.2 million AIDS orphans (UNAIDS 2005 figures). The AIDS epidemic here is second only to India. Seven years ago SIM began to work more strategically with partner churches to help leaders and volunteers care for people in their communities who were sick and dying with AIDS. Pastor Clement Joseph said later, “Until then, we thought our only job was to preach.”

	Clement Joseph visits homes of AIDS sufferers who are dying; the little boy is about to become an orphan.

The training he received so energized him that he developed a program in his own church, then mobilized other pastors to do the same. The ministry grew into the multi-faceted "Project Positive Ray,” jointly sponsored by the Evangelical Church of South Africa and HOPE for AIDS. So effective is this program that it has become a model for other programs. Help is required from private donors to strengthen the pastoral care and spiritual aspects of the ministry.

The project offers a Bible study course titled “HIV & AIDS—Purity and Sexuality.” As the Lord provides funds, the project delivers food parcels to people who are too poor to buy food and too ill to work or grow their own. Often families need financial help to pay for funerals. Pastor Joseph writes, “Positive Ray, on behalf of the church family, is making critical interventions to help reduce/control the AIDS epidemic through prevention, treatment, and care programs. We need your prayers, as well as moral and financial support, to win the battle against HIV and AIDS.”

Fighting AIDS with the Arts

In Malawi, the HOPE for AIDS program mobilizes the youth of the Africa Evangelical Church (AEC) to spread the message of AIDS prevention among their peers. Only by deciding at a young age to abstain from sexual activity until marriage can these young people have hope of remaining free of HIV.

SIM workers Mike and Jacky Hammond and Kondwani Kanyimbiri organized a songs and drama competition (Project # MW 96350) around the theme “Avoiding AIDS.” About 250 competitors, winners of nine regional contests, participated in the finals. Alongside the performances, a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) clinic tested 78 individuals for HIV, and a pastor living with HIV gave a talk. The contestants demonstrated amazing creativity and humor, despite the serious nature of the subject.

The Naotcha Youth Choir won first place, and they have since performed their winning song for another youth event and also at a “misasa” (camp) meeting of a number of AEC churches, challenging the youth and their parents to make informed, wise, and godly lifestyle choices.