1 May 2010 - In the News
By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com
TRAVERSE CITY — Every 16.6 seconds, someone is infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. That's enough people to fill Michigan Stadium every 21 days, Brad Harrison said.
"It's really, really difficult to wrap your mind around the problem until you see it," said Harrison, ministry director for Christ's Hope USA, based in Traverse City. "People are amazed at what they find when they go to Africa."
It's a situation Christ's Hope will highlight during World AIDS Orphans Day Friday, May 7. Organization staff will be at Espresso Bay in Traverse City from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to hand out literature, answer questions and talk about opportunities to help, from volunteering to cycling in a 2011 fundraiser called "Ride for Hope."
The U.S. is one of six "mobilizing countries" in the Christ's Hope International network, an African-based ministry that works in eight nations in sub-Saharan Africa. That's the area hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic.
"We are focused completely on the AIDS situation there," said Harrison, who joined the U.S. office two years after it moved to Traverse City in 2007. "We mobilize people and resources to go and do the work in Africa."
Teams from all over the country, including the Grand Traverse region, will be heading there this year, he said.
The work is divided into three ministries, all funded and carried out with private donations and volunteers. They include "Choose to Wait," in which volunteers teach the biblical perspective on marriage, family and sex in order to try to break the AIDS cycle upfront, and "Care and Compassion," in which volunteers work with people infected by AIDS.
Many need help just to sit up but have been abandoned by their families, said Andy DuPont of Glen Arbor.
"You come in and you find a person whose family doesn't want anything to do with them. They're scared, they don't understand," said DuPont, a retired Dow Chemical employee who has made three trips to Africa with Christ's Hope. "If no one's there to get them, they just die. And these are people who could live if they got anti-viral drugs and help to get stronger. They can live a good, productive life."
In the "Our Valuable Children" ministry, volunteers help meet the needs of the growing population of orphans and vulnerable children at "ministry care points" like schools and youth jails.
Harrison said there are an estimated 12 million orphans in the area from AIDS.
"There are kids having to raise their brothers or sisters because their parents are both gone," he added.
A portion of Espresso Bay's May 7 sales will be donated to Christ's Hope to support the Our Valuable Children ministry.
"What we're trying to do is raise awareness of the issue and of the fact that we're here in Traverse City," Harrison said.
Heidi Yaple has funded three trips to Africa with Christ's Hope on her salary as a grants officer at Northwestern Michigan College.
"You often think what difference you're going to make in two weeks," said Yaple, who stays open-minded and respectful of African cultures by not comparing them to her own. "It's a ministry of giving validity to the people you meet. When you go into a remote village and work with the children there, when you hold a child or look at a child or hold a child's hand, with just a glance or a smile you're telling that person that they're important.
"Some local Kenyans have told us that's one of the few times in these kids' lives that they have an experience like that," she said.
For more information about the ministry, visit www.christshope.org.
