Testing Day for Our Bible Study Group and their friends

We have been meeting every Wednesday night with our Bible study group and last week was our last evening because of winter time and darkness. It is the rainy season here and our Zimbabwean friends have to walk and they don’t have ways of getting dried off or warm if they get wet. It is also dark and they are afraid to walk after dark because of all the robberies and the xenophobia scare. We asked them about 4 weeks before the cutoff date if they would like to have a testing evening at Living Hope and they all thought that would be a good idea. LH offered everyone who attended free HIV testing and counseling. The team at Living Hope together with the Desmund Tutu foundation, gave a great explanation of how HIV is spread and lots of information about ARV’s, anti-retroviral drugs, and told them if anyone was positive they would be able to get free ARV’s from the hospital because they had been tested at our facility. 21 people attended but only 13 were from our group the rest were friends or family members of the group. 4 people decided not to be tested, and 5 tested positive for HIV. This makes the percentage of people with HIV close to 30%. We found out later in the week that 2 people knew they were positive but wanted to be tested again, but 3 people got told they were HIV positive for the first time. When Mike and I really think about this we realize that these folks, without help, may not be alive in 5 years. This is the reality here in Africa. All of these people are from Zimbabwe and with the xenophobia getting ready to break out again after the World Cup they may have to flee for their lives and not be able to continue on the drugs. All we can do is to be obedient to what God has asked us to do, to teach them Godly principles and eternal life. We don’t know who the 5 people are that are positive and perhaps that is best but I ask that you would join in prayer with us that our friends would reject the cultural norm of having more than one wife. This culture runs deep in telling men it is ok to have more than one partner and it results in what we had happen on Wednesday evening.