Church Of The Poor

Church of the Poor feels an urgent, effective response with lifesaving prevention and compassionate care is needed, more than ever.

The church has now become a major provider of HIV programmes {equaled by the government and in some countries like Burundi, exceeding the government} in many of the poorest, hard hit nations, and this is definitely good news. The church, community organizations, leaders, business, media and the government must all pull together to beat HIV step by step.

Sadly, the church is still busy in focusing its attention on care and neglect prevention. No doubt, this is a kind hearted response, but it is short sighted and doesn’t serve the real needs of the community which can lead to disaster. Some projects spend $175,000 a year on caring for children in a 30 bedded hospital but unfortunately, nothing on prevention of millions of dying children. The budget spent on this same project can pay 100 villagers as educators, saving at least 50 lives a year. that’s  10000 people who are also never going to infect others,5000 women saving their babies from risk, up to 50000 children who will not be bereaved.

Our immediate task is to ensure we spend as much as time, effort and funds on prevention also as on care. Caring is easy, in the sense that funds can be easily generated with minimum efforts, the setup is not very difficult, you can measure the impact of your work right before your eyes and you van convince and motivate people easily. But, mind you, Prevention is the much greater challenge.

The major challenge before us is to connect the two movements, International Financial sources with the army of Christian project workers, together. Today the emphasis must be on partnerships including Faith based organizations {FBOs}.In other words, a Global Christian movement for the poor and needy is needed.

AIDS is going to damage churches physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, unless we are prepared.The mystery of HIV is that it can infect you for years before you know it, and by the time you do, it may have infected hundreds of others. The long SILENT delay between infection and death is why HIV is so dangerous, not the fact that it kills. The very long time lag produces a credibility problem. The only people who really understand what will hit us are the mathematicians! An invisible terror can be ignored. If we have to wait for another 10 years tom see what is happening, we will be too late.


AIDS thrives on poverty, spreading rapidly in the poorest nations with the least health or education infrastructure. That is why we must take a holistic view of AIDS and view it as a development issue and not just a health issue. There is no point in educating a young girl about HIV; if she is an orphan on the streets and can only stay alive by selling her body to others for sexual favors. To save such lives,The Church of the Poor strongly suggests setting up projects that generate income, as well as provide education programmes.

 The spread of AIDS is one of the fastest ways to wreck an economy and to put a country’s development backward by 20 years. HIV and AIDS education must be integrated with every possible development programme, whether it is a new school or a clean drinking water project. You are not spending anything extra to build it into everything that’s done. The best programmes sometimes cost the least; they use local people who bring HIV awareness into everything they are involved in, as a part of everyday life.

Prevention has to take priority over care if we are to stop AIDS deaths. You have only TODAY to save someone from becoming infected with HIV. You have 10 more years to plan their care if you fail. One infection cleared up today is a life saved and a family protected. But, one infection prevented today may save 100 lives over the next decade, considering the Nature of HIV.

 In most churches and Christian programmes driven by the compassion for the sick and vulnerable, people feel the need to shoe unconditional love of god to all affected by HIV and there is nothing wrong in doing so. The Church of the Poor wants to ensure that preventing more tragedies should not be neglected.We should not blindly care for people one by one with all our compassion until the whole town is dead, but rather go to the root of the problem and find a solution.

Today people are ready to fund millions for healthcare institutions, but only hundreds for health care educators. Why this Bias? We must realize the fact that one who comes with HIV for care is someone who cannot be cured: and keep in mind that every single one of those infections was preventable. There is a sharp need to focus on prevention.

We need a vision to meet the challenge to demonstrate the love of God and teach people to live healthy lives. The Church of the Poor seeks to challenge and fight oppression, stigmatization, and prejudice wherever wee find them and challenge our society to reconsider its values. The church is called to be salt and light, transforming the whole of society by its witness and work, and not just the lives of believers.

 The Church of the Poor feels proud that the church has been a pioneer in many aspects of medical care over the centuries. In most of the countries you can find the first hospitals and health care institutions started y Christians. Dedicated men and women went out to fight sometimes dying far away from home, fighting against the same diseases.



Whether it was Africa, Asia, South America or China, the direr and primitive conditions didn’t deter these faithful missionaries to carry out their work. They felt that bringing treatment for Malaria, Leprosy, tuberculosis or Small Pox was like bringing the practical Love of God. No wonder, Churches in South America, Africa and Asia are the fastest growing in the world, sometimes faster that the growth of birth rate. These countries are in turn sending their missionaries to mainland Europe, ULK and the USA. Churches and congregational workers must get involved in the wider community apart from caring for their own. We must care about what is happening and we must make a difference.

Jesus said that true love is to care for those who are not member’s of our own family, people with whom we normally don’t associate, people we don’t like and our enemies, backstabbers and those who are against us {Luke 5:43-48} We must be willing to care for others in our community without any hidden agenda or motive following the steps of the Good Samaritan.

Church of the Poor strongly feels that the government alone is not responsible The Church is equally responsible. We must not let churches initiative to be a mere extension of the government or international agencies by caring for people closely linking social justice and basic human rights.
 
“You cannot change the whole world, but you can change someone’s world somewhere”   George Hoffman, founder of Tearfund.