Recently I turned over the consulting work I was doing with our three PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God) partner organizations in Uganda’s Teso sub-region to Edward Etanu Okiror, one of my World Renew colleagues. The handover included responsibility for visits to the partner organizations I had been working with since coming to Uganda in 2000.

Recently I turned over the consulting work I was doing with our three PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God) partner organizations in Uganda’s Teso sub-region to Edward Etanu Okiror, one of my World Renew colleagues. The handover included responsibility for visits to the partner organizations I had been working with since coming to Uganda in 2000.

One of the partners we visited together recently as part of the transition was the PAG Kaberamaido Mission Development Program (KMDP). I had been working with KMDP since 2004 when World Renew and PAG began a joint disaster response program for families returning home after being displaced by LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) rebels who had invaded the area in 2003. The PAG KMDP team does good work, and we have been privileged to be involved in partnership with them. For the last few years KMDP has been engaged in HIV and AIDS response activities with financial support from World Renew’s Embrace AIDS Fund. The program has focused on prevention and on care and support for persons living with HIV and AIDS. 

From time to time I travel with PAG development program staff to visit the communities and families we serve. The visit usually includes meeting under a big tree that shelters us from the hot equatorial sun. Community members and visitors like us introduce ourselves. Then program participants talk about how they have benefited from our support, and we visitors have the opportunity to ask questions and offer encouragement. I often make it a point to tell the community that the work we are doing together is being supported by people far away, on the other side of the world, most of whom they will never meet, but who care enough about them to contribute to the work and to uphold them in their prayers.

“You see these people. They are living with HIV, but they are not sick.”

On this final visit to Kaberamaido as their World Renew consultant, I visited community groups that are support groups involved with our HIV and AIDS response programs, people living with HIV, and family members affected by HIV even though not infected. I was struck by a comment made by the spokesperson in the last group we visited. In introducing the group he stated: “You see these people. They are living with HIV, but they are not sick.” This statement was remarkable because “sick” has been one of the euphemisms used to avoid saying a person has HIV and AIDS. This is due to the stigma that has been associated with the disease—a stigma that persists in Uganda even though the virus has been with us for so long and has affected every Ugandan family. The fact that the group’s spokesman felt comfortable making this statement, and the fact that people living with HIV and AIDS felt at ease meeting as a group to discuss their situation with outsiders, is a sign of how far some communities have come in reducing stigma. Much of this progress can be traced to the work of our church partners in education of church and community members, and their encouragement for those living with HIV.

Prayer Requests:

• We are grateful for the peaceful elections that took place next door in Kenya on March 4 after so many concerns about the possibility of widespread violence like that which occurred in the elections of five years ago.
• We are working with farmers who are cultivating plots of land that are getting smaller as they are sub-divided with each generation. There is also a decline in soil fertility, and problems with deciding when and what to plant as the seasons become more unpredictable and there is more extreme weather. Pray that our farmer education programs will result in communities that become more resilient and more aware of their responsibility and capability to care for the land God has given them.

Thank you for your continuing support of our work in Uganda.

 

Jim Zylstra

Team Leader
World Renew Uganda