Friday 20th August 2004
THREE years ago I visited Kuruman at the invitation of the Moffat Mission to run a workshop for clergy on HIV/AIDS. Participants from at least five different denominations travelled a considerable distance to be there and for many of them it was their first opportunity to talk to each other openly about HIV. In the course of the weekend, a couple of young Anglican priests, hearing I was from Oxford, asked me about the link between the two dioceses, commenting that it was a shame that this seemed to be benefiting only senior clergy and diocesan officials. It was good, therefore, to read in your July/August edition that parishes here are being encouraged to become involved in relatively small short-term projects in Kimberley and Kuruman (the example you give relates to financing improvements to the cathedral site and the diocesan centre). It would perhaps be even better if the link could also be used to benefit congregations whose suffering is rather greater than that caused by the lack of an air-conditioned office. Currently in South Africa 22 per cent of adults aged 15-49 are living with HIV/AIDS and in the next decade one in every five adults will die. Within the next six years life expectancy is predicted to fall to just 40. If this is hard to imagine, look at your own congregation next Sunday, mentally strike out every fifth person and think of everyone left who is over 40 as living on borrowed time. This is the reality of life in South Africa, except in the townships, where the rate of infection is higher still.
As Christians we have real choices to make. The appeal for air conditioning and for work to the Bishop's office in Kimberley amounts to £3,750. If churches were to give a further £3,750 to Christian Aid they could pay for a year's schooling for 375 children in a South African township who have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. Twice that amount would pay for the children's books as well.
Dr Paula Clifford
Christian Aid, London