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Insert to TableTalk, November 2004
World AIDS Day and HIV/AIDS Resources
The 2004 Rocky Mountain Annual Conference said (AC31): “The
2004 Rocky Mountain Annual Conference reaffirms its commitment
to conference-wide efforts to raise awareness about the global
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) pandemic, and encourages
every local congregation to contribute financially to the projects
identified through the Rocky Mountain Global AIDS Task Force. Local
churches are asked to have study groups and task forces that explore
issues related to global AIDS.”
This insert lists resources for congregations to use in study,
worship, planning and giving.
Circuit Rider Article
Donald E. Messer, RMC clergy member and Iliff professor and Global AIDS Fund
liaison for the Conference Board of Global Ministries, has written an article
that appears in the current issue (November-December 2004) of Circuit Rider
on HIV/AIDS in Africa. "Saving Grace: AIDS in Africa" is the title
of the article, which will be helpful to those working to raise funds to
fight AIDS through the new Global AIDS Fund (General Conference, 2004).
The article has suggestions that will be useful in sermons and
education efforts in each local church. Messer writes that Christians
face "an incredible moral challenge" in confronting the
worldwide AIDS pandemic. To care about Africa is to care about
AIDS: "Of the more than 40 million people currently infected
with HIV/AIDS, some 30 million are in sub-Saharan. Some 60% are
women, and the number of AIDS-related orphans in sub-Saharan Africa
is projected to be 50 million in 2010. In the world nine out of
10 children living with HIV/AIDS is African, as are eight of every
10 children who have lost parents to AIDS. The infection rates
continue to climb, death tolls escalate, and life expectancy rates
plummet throughout Africa" writes Messer. "The prevailing
silence in the church must be broken if persons are to understand
and to respond to the worst health crisis facing the world in 700
years."
Web Resources
Materials for World AIDS Day and for study are available from the UN
Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS, the General
Board of Church and Society, and the General
Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. UMC.org has many links here.
Church World Service has resources
for worship and education.
Find other resources on the RMCUMC.org web site under News and
Church Resources.
HIV/AIDS resources covering the 3 states of our Conference:
UMCOR has just re-released a resource on DVD called "Generation of Hope;
What It Means to Prevail in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic." This is a 10-minute
video with study guide and is available from the Conference Media Center. If
DVD is not a convenient format for you, the first release is available in VHS
format.
The Conference Media Center also has these VHS tapes for rent:
- AIDS and the Church’s Role (42min, 1988)
- AIDS: Who’s
Behind The Mask? (30min, 1988).
Books, Bibliographies
Available from Cokesbury:
• Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence; Christian Churches and the Global
AIDS Crisis - Don Messer
• A Plague of Paradoxes; AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern
Tanzania - Philip W. Setel
• Dancing in a Wheelchair; One Family Faces HIV/AIDS - Fritz Mutti
Church Response to AIDS Bibliographies useful for those planning
studies and other ministries:
• Bible Studies
• Christian Perspective
• Denominational Statements
• Pastoral Manuals
• Education/Curricula/Counseling
AIDS Book Review
Journal
Book List and Reviews
Center for the
Study of AIDS, University of Pretoria Book Reviews
From Don Messer, Global AIDS Fund Liaison (CBGM):
Mother Teresa often reminded people that just because we cannot determine political
policies, we dare not use this as an excuse for doing nothing. She said if
she had not picked up the first sick person suffering in the streets of India,
she might have never reached out to another. The day I visited her first
home for the destitute and dying in Calcutta, patient number 77, 441 had
been brought there for compassionate care. Even as we advocate for political
changes and funding, we have to find ways as Christians, in Mother Teresa’s
words, so that we can reach out “one by one by one.”
Gifts Are Needed To Support Conference HIV/AIDS Outreach
Last year, thanks to your gifts and a $10,000 apportionment the Rocky Mountain
Conference also supported programs that:
• Purchased medicine stopping 860 babies in India from getting HIV.
• Started an AIDS prison ministry in Russia, where infection has risen
300%.
• Provided support to Kenya mothers and fathers struggling to live with
HIV/AIDS.
This year we have more need and less money (since only $1,000
rather than $10,000 was apportioned and to date individual & church
giving has been less). Unless individuals and every church contribute,
we cannot carry on this ministry at a time God’s cry for
help is evident everywhere human beings are suffering.
World AIDS Day on December 1, 2004 focuses on the special global dilemma of
Women, Children, and AIDS. At Annual Conference it was suggested every church
pick some special Sunday in the year and take up a special collection for AIDS.
We can make a difference “one-by-one” if we give what
we can. For those who cannot speak their gratitude, let me thank
you for sending your individual and church gifts to:
Rocky Mountain Conference UMC, c/o Dan O’Neill,
2200 South University Blvd., Denver, Colorado 80210
Contact Don Messer at dmesser@iliff.edu, 303-744-1287 (o) or 303-770-5809
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