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Summary
of brief by Dr Albu van Eeden (president of Doctors for Life): The situation regarding AIDS Not
so much today on the prevention on AIDS – concentrated on that in the past. It is
still extremely important and our resistance to the promotion of condoms is the answer to
the AIDS problem. Condoms as a technical device will never stop the AIDS problem. The
promotion of condoms very often promotes promiscuity among youth. But the AIDS epidemic
have matured to such an extent that I want to speak about those with AIDS/HIV and how to
handle them. The AIDS epidemic a prickly pear in theological circles. Listened to
theologians arguing whether God’s judgement or not. Met Christians in Gauteng who
refuses to help any one with AIDS because it is God’s punishment on an immoral life. Isaiah
1:5 – 6 Because
of Israel’s disobedience God brought this suffering on them. But it was means to be a
stick to drive them back to Him and His laws. That is why He says in verse 18 ... When God
punished them it was so that they could repent and turn back to God. When worldly people
realise through AIDS that they have sinned and want to turn back to God, the church must
be there to take them by the hand lead them back to God. We cannot just distance ourselves
from them. Then God won’t be able to use use to save those souls who have learnt from
their sin. I
want to impress on you how serious it is. I am taking examples which only happened last
week. I’ve taken examples of what happened in a small village sixty km from here in a
village called Groutville. There an organisation who works among people who live with AIDS
received three orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. The one 12 years, the other 7 and
the smallest one was 2 weeks old. The girl of 12 years was pregnant because a male family
member of 34 years came to “care” for them. We have an epidemic of child
molestation. We as doctors see week-old babies who have been sexually molested because
they are orphans – they do not have the protection of parents anymore. If a child is
adopted in to the extended family, one person will sexually molest the child and the other
male members of that family see it as a license to have sex with the child. In another
small village they started a creche for AIDS orphans. They allow the children to stay with
grand- or great-grandparents. During the night they sleep there and during the day they
are kept at the creche and are safe from sexual molestation by the community. Within a
short while the creche had 35 children. One boy, 7 years old, walks every day between 3
and 4 km to the creche and then back again in the evening. Last week three children came
to a clinic. The one was 9 years old and a sister of 12 years. The other girl was 11 years
old, with another mother. These three decided to walk for 7 km to the clinic to see if
they could find somebody to care for them. The two mothers of these children died of AIDS.
The fathers are not around. A 20 year old family member tried to care for these children.
Not one of them are attending school. A third example. The father of this child was
terminally ill. This is an AIDS orphan. He had two girlfriends. The first one died after
two of her new-born babies passed away. The second girlfriend died when her baby was 2
weeks old. The baby is being cared for by the grandmother in her seventies. She cannot
afford mild for the child. This was until AIDS home-carers got into contact with her. She
had not nappies or clothes for the child. We are seeing hell on earth in some of these
communities. I
spoke recently to someone who does AIDS home-care. In some places there is a spirit of
depression. It is like a cloud hanging over the community – an atmosphere of
hopelessness. Family members don’t care for their HIV positive members anymore. Not
because there is an evil intention behind it, but they have become fatalistic. Latest
statistics for KZN – between 36 and 40 percent HIV positive. The high risk group (20
– 24 years) has a 42 percent infection. In the rest of our country it is between 1
out of 5 and 1 out of 4 positive people. These
three examples were all from Groutville and just last week. These people come from areas
where you are pastors and have your churches. This is my challenge to you: What is the
church doing about this? Secular humanitarian organisations are helping and working in
these areas. You are overwhelmed by the absolute poverty in these areas. May the church
see this opportunity to win souls for Christ. DFL
is involved in AIDS Homecare. We’ve seen wonderful conversions. Help them physically
but give them the spiritual sides of things. Brother
Andrew wrote in his book, Battle of Africa, that the Christians came to Africa bringing
schools and hospitals, but they failed in the beginning of the century to capture the
hearts of the people, which is something the communists did later. This is a danger –
that we do charitable work and not capture the heart of the people, but we have to
minister to their physical needs as well. One
more challenge: Many of you have doctors/nurses in your congregation. A few tough
challenges are facing the medical profession which will directly affect the church. One
is the progress of medical science. Last year they combined the genetic material of a
human and a pig. This embryo was allowed to grow for 20 days in and English laboratory
before it was destroyed. The church needs to give direction urgently in this situation.
Not tomorrow, we need it now. Many of the doctors who are busy with this are sitting in
church listening to a service on a Sunday. Another
laboratory successfully combined a pig, human, dog and a monkey’s genetic material in
one embryo. In the Time magazine of about three weeks ago had a picture of monkey that
glows in the dark. How did they get that right. They put genes of a jellyfish into the
monkey and not it exhibits the same characteristic of glowing in the dark. Peter Singer,
the high priest of ethics, wrote a whole chapter on medical ethics for the Britannica said
that a child in the first year of his life should not enjoy the moral status of a human
being. He said that certain animals have a higher moral status that a human baby during
its first year of life. This is not a crazy professor, he is part of a group of mainline
professors. DFL
is also involved in the abortion issue. We fight abortion. We are involved in the AIDS
epidemic. We have a school programme to teach a moral answer to the AIDS epidemic. We have
an industrial programme to teach men in the industry. The
government, three years ago, issued an order that a child born alive during an abortion
must be left to die. We wrote to the department of health calling it infanticide and the
minister of health had to apologise in parliament and write a circular to all hospitals
saying that it was wrong. The
government ahs asked us twice to help them. Once recently in the Prince case we were asked
to give evidence against the legalisation of dagga. When they wanted to legalise
prostitution in Gauteng we were asked by the prosecution to give evidence against this. If
you would like to get involved and you are not a doctor, we have an organisation called
Friends of Doctors for Life which anyone can join. |
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Last edited on: Tuesday April 03, 2007 E-mail us at: mail@ksb.org.za Return to KSB Home page |
