Generation Why: Question it all. Answer out loud.

See it for yourself. Do an oversees internship or volunteer with CRWRC. No matter what you do, you will come face to face with the real people living with HIV and AIDS.

Get on your knees. Get serious and let God know. Ask for passion. Ask God to equip you to do what it is you were meant to do in the fight against AIDS -- and to give you the guts to do it.

Give it up. People live on less than one dollar a day. March their income with less than the cost of pack of gum every day for as many months as you can. The full 100% you give to CRWRC's Embrace AIDS campaign goes to AIDS programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Shrug off the cheap stuff. Super cheap coffee and chocolate is usually subsidized. Retrain your brain to buy fair trade (look for the logo) and your stomach to crave what only fairly paid farmers could have made.

Speak up. Your voice is a strong as your desire to speak up. Pay a visit to your elected representatives. Let him or her know that our country needs to send more aid for AIDS.

Give birth to your own brainchild. Got an idea to help the world Embrace AIDS? Fire off an email to embraceaids@crcna.org (US) or embraceaids@crcna.ca (Canada) to help make it happen!

Treatment: As Complex As The Disease Itself

Treating AIDS is as complex as the disease itself. It's more than medicatiion, and more than encouraging abstinence. CRWRC embraces all the symptoms and causes of AIDS then addresses the physical, mental and spiritual needs. To do this, CRWRC follows Jesus' example when working with communities living with HIV and AIDS.

Together -- you, the community and the CRWRC -- can effect lasting change by:

• Teaching youth and adults about abstinence and faithfulness in marriage and about the holiness of the human body as taught in scriptures.
  
• Helping families learn to earn an income despite the difficulties of their illness.
• Supporting communities in their care of children orphaned by AIDS.
• Training pastors and church leaders about HIV and how to effectively care for their community.
• Providing community-based health care to families in remote areas.
• Teaching caregivers and people living with HIV and AIDS ways to manage the illness, such as healthy eating.
• Finding ways to get people access to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs).
• Offering psychological and spiritual counseling.
• Providing seeds for kitchen gardens, to grow disease fighting good and grains like amaranth
• Addressing stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS.
  

Stigma and Discrimination

"Silence is not an option. Nor is inaction. Injustice and suffering demand our advocacy in a world that desperately needs people of faith creatively working together for change."

-- Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance

The greatest reason people stigmatize and discriminate against others? Ignorance. It was our ignorance -- and hate -- that killed Jesus: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

We all know what it's like to be misjudged and be hurt and to misjudge and hurt someone else -- even with the truth staring us in the face. We can make a difference for people living with HIV and AIDS just to show enough respect to break down stigma and spread truth.

Sexual Responsibility

People living with AIDS aren't morally vacant. No more so than I or you, at least. Abstinence and faithfulness would certainly slice the spread of HIV. Look at AIDS in a vacuum and you might think, "What's with them over there?" But here, with food, shelter, security and just as many bad choices being made we might not act objectively and as a result stigmatize people unfairly.

What was it Jesus said? "If anyone among you is without sin, cast the first stone at her," said our merciful Jesus (John 8:7).

Talking about sex and AIDS can be difficult. But silence and whispers only aggravates stigma and discrimination, leaving millions infected with the disease to live and die alone and in fear.

Millennium Development Goals and the Christian Reformed Church

I was reading, "The Skeptic's Guide to the Global AIDS Crisis" last week and I got to page 81 where the 8 millennium development goals were listed. It stopped me in my tracks. Why haven't I seen these before?

The UN adopted them in 2000 as goals that every country could hope to achieve by 2015 and I was not even aware of them. Wow, I live a sheltered life. These 8 goals are so compelling. Who would not want to give their lives to helping achieve these goals? This is what redemption can lead to.

In Christian Reformed circles we talk about transforming society and the world. We talk about how to relate the gospel to the world with a transformational emphasis. That is what I like so much about our reformed perspective, redemption begins between us and God and then it branches out into society and the world with the gospel saying yes to repairing the world. It's seeing the kingdom of God developing in all areas of society.

And this is why the millennium development goals are so compelling to me. They are stated so clearly. They involve all humanity. They are shared with the nations. And they are about, may I use the word - redemption.

1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2) Achieve universal primary education.
3) Promote gender equality and empower women.
4) Reduce child mortality.
5) Improve maternal health.
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
7) Ensure environmental sustainability.
8) Develop a global partnership for development.

I have so many questions. How are we doing with these goals? What initiatives are there that is working on these? How is the worldwide buy-in? Who are the front runners? Is there a way to track progress? What does this mean for us here in Chilliwack? For Heartland?

AIDS Resources and Useful Things

Useful things for the activist within you!

Micahmorphosis: micahmorphosis.org
Youth site and discussion board focusing on the eight Millennium Development Goals.

Make Affluence History: geezmagazine.org/affluence
ideas to reduce affluence and extreme wealth

UNAIDS: unaids.org
United nations HIV and AIDS web site

Alternatives for Simple Living: simpleliving.org
Their motto: Living simply that others may live.

Buy Nothing Christmas: buynothingchristmas.org
Learn ways to make Christmas truly special without gifts

DATA: data.org
U2 rocker Bono's site for dept, AIDS, trade in Africa

ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History: one.org
U.S. Site for the global campaign

Make Poverty History: makepovertyhistory.ca
Canadian site for the global campaign

Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS: youthaidscoalition.org
Youth Advocacy organization for AIDS

Embrace Aids

If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry, and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places -- firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be know as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
(Isaiah 58:9-12, The Message).

Unfair Trade and Global Economic Policy

"How on earth could anybody stand in a field with these people and say that it's the right thing to do to dump their excess produce cheaply on a third world country? It's beyond me."
-- Chris Martin, lead singer, Coldplay

"Do what's in your best interest." That's not Christ Jesus' way, but it is the way of our messed up world. Wealthy countries offer their farmers subsidies to produce cheaper and more food so it can be sold at low costs both at home and overseas; large corporations pay rock bottom prices to poor farmers for crops like coffee and sugar then sell it to first world coffee chains and grocery stores at a much higher cost. The average African farmer pays two to six times for fertilizer than the world market price. All this unfair trade and policy drives farmers and their communities in developing countries deeper into poverty, despair and hopelessness. HIV is just waiting to infect their exhausted bodies, hearts and minds. In North America, insisting on and buying cheaper coffee, sugar, clothing and electronics often fuels the continuation of unfair trade policies.

Extreme Poverty

"Poverty is not natural. It is manmade, and can be overcome by the action of human beings."
Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa

More than one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. They can't get the basics of feed, clean water, health care, shelter or education. They live right here on planet Earth, but with all our luxury cars, celebrity power and "Reality" TV they may as well live on Mars. The extremely poor seem like a world away.

But have we put them on another planet, economically and in our hearts and minds? What we buy, what we value, what we don't do and what we don't know have great impact on millions of lives. And since HIV and AIDS is widely considered consequences of extreme poverty, it partly falls on us to reverse the widening gap between rich and poor, healthy and sick that we have helped create - and to do it in the name of God.

What If

What if ...

Five years ago Bernard was a sugar cane farmer, earning just enough to feed his family. Then an agricultural corporation strong-armed the farmers and bought up the land. Bernard was forced to sell his one acre for $25.00

Desperate he took a truck driving job, traveling long distances to earn about a dollar a day. One lonely night, Bernard spend the night with a young woman who turned to prostitution after her parents died to care for her siblings.

A year later, Bernard died from AIDS. His wife, Esther has no money, her in laws took everything she owns and since testing positive for HIV she has been abandoned by her parents, her friends and her church.

No more positive people

• Every day, nearly 12,000 people become HIV positive
• Young people (under the age of 25) account for half of these new HIV infections
• There are currenly 39.5 million people living with AIDS around the world
• 48% of them are women (59%) in Africa
• 2.3 million of them are children
• 63% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa
• In Africa alone, 12 million children are AIDS orphans

Is AIDS a sentence for the sinful sexed up citizens trotting our globe?

Get Real

Try living on less than a dollar a day. Two hundred and thirty-three million Africans do it, a.k.a. the extremely poor. These are the world's most positive - positive with HIV.

And these are the H.O.P.E. positive, like no supped-up-jetsetter-star-studded superficial life can ever wrangle up. They are brothers and sisters full of brilliance and determination, skill and imagination asking brothers and sisters to follow a few simple instructions.

"Love the Lord with all your heart and wil all you soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandement greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31).

This is their time. This is your time. Face the light of the Son and don't turn away. Embrace AIDS.

Embrace Aids - Don't Turn Away

For the next few weeks I'll be blogging about the launch of the embrace aids campaign. We at Heartland are on board, and we are going to be a part of the larger community that is try to "Embrace Aids."

Most of the info for the upcoming posts will be from Christian Reformed World Relief Committee.

Advent Conspiracy

This Sunday is the beginning of the Advent season - the time that we get our minds and hearts ready for the birth of Jesus.

It's a mixed season for me as a pastor. On one hand I love Christmas, remembering the purpose and mission of Christ, how God worked all through history fulfilling pre-told events to bring the birth. I love it when scripture comes true, like the birth of Christ. I love Christmas time, family get togethers, kids are out of school, snowboarding, gaining about 5 lbs, and reading all the Christmas letters from our friends.

But over the years the Christmas season has also bothered me -- all the extra spending, all the extra eating, all the consuming seems misguided. I brace myself for late November when stores begin to launch their Christmas advertising monster. It seems that it is just accepted that you spend money, lots of money on the ones you love. Never mind you don't have the money, never mind that most of world's population has desperate need.

Since Jesus gave us the gift of salvation, we should celebrate Christmas by giving each other gifts, right? So starts the name exchanges, white elephant gifts, office parties, sales at the mall, and the executives at the big boxes start watching the spending and their grins just get bigger as they take more and more market share. As they see the conspiracy of the financial empire working - more people exposed to more advertising, advertising becoming more effective, more people buying cause they feel the need to, more money spent and the consuming ability of individual's keeps going up.

The financial empire is teaching and wooing us to spend more, to throw away more and to desire more. Christmas is the season to promote that global empire in strength, savy, and increasing depth and influence.

I'm not against advertising, nor gift giving. It just seems that the enormous effort exherted during this time is misguided as it's done because the Savior of the world was born. Why not celebrate Jesus birth in a way that is in alignment with what He stood for?

So, this Christmas, we are going to try something a little diffferent. We are going to join in with others who are doing the advent conspiracy. We are going to try and spend the same, but on different priorities. Instead of sweaters, socks and ties, we are going to try help other people. We are going to help local needy kids by contributing to a literacy program by giving books for kids in partnership with Chilliwack Community Services. We are going to help needy overseas families by buying them gifts of a farm tool or bike or goat - check out the cool catalog we'll be shopping from this Christmas. We'll also be one part of many who will be launching the CRWRC's EmbraceAids multi year campaign this Sunday.