Week Four: Hope(less?)

If you want to read the introduction to this series, please click here.

This a very poignant quote by James Wolfensohn, one-time president of the World Bank. He told the U.N. Security Council in January 2000 that an effective and comprehensive prevention program for sub-Saharan Africa would cost $2.3 billion a year. To be effective prevention must be paired with investment that will create jobs, invigorate the educational system and pull the poor out of the "here and now" mentality that makes them susceptible to AIDS. "Many of us used to think of AIDS as a health issue," Wolfensohn told the Security Council. "We were wrong. AIDS can no longer be confined to the health or social sector portfolios. AIDS is turning back the clock on development." http://www.globalhealth.org/news/article/500

There are about 36 million living with AIDS right now, and about 3.2 million will be infected with it for the first time this year. 2.3 people will die this year from AIDS.

Here's the thing: the issue of human trafficking felt so overwhelming because of the "hiddenness" of it, the fact that it was going on, but no one really knows how to bring it to the light or how extensive it is. This one feels overwhelming because of the "inevitability" of the way people write about it, especially in the way they write about Africa. It's like it's been there for years, will continue to be there, and there's no amount of money or education or whatever that can change what will happen.

But the message of the gospel is the message of transformation. It's the message that things that seemed inevitable can be reversed. That entire nations can be brought out of slavery, that seas can be parted, that dead can be made alive, that sin can be defeated, and that those far away from God can come to know him. So I'm choosing to pray for AIDS, even AIDS in Africa with great hope and expectation. After all, if God can save me, he can certainly bring this problem to an end!