AIDS claims 700 people per week in Zimbabwe. In this interview Stephen N. Ndlovu tells how Zimbabwean Christians are working to help people with AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and to prevent the spread of the disease. Former bishop Ndlovu is a senior leader of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe and a former member of the Executive Committee of Mennonite World Conference. Doris Dube, a member of the Brethren in Christ Church, is a teacher and Africa editor for the Mennonite World Conference Communications team. She lives and works in an SOS village where the bulk of children are orphans.

How has AIDS impacted your community? The whole country of Zimbabwe?

AIDS has taken a great toll on our people. It has taken our young people. It has taken adults and babies. We have learnt to recognize some of the patterns. People are sick. They seek medical help. Some are admitted into hospitals. They are diagnosed as suffering from TB or some other illness. After a certain period, despite still being ill, they are discharged and sent home with an evasive message. However nicely it is disguised, it means the same: “Go home and die.”

Moral standards have decayed. They have deteriorated generally. People do not look after or respect their bodies. Some are deceived by the publicity given to the use of condoms. Initially when AIDS came to our country, and for a long time afterwards, people believed they could escape contamination by using condoms. They did not heed the moral implications of their actions. They played around with sex. I am encouraged, however, that now even some doctors have joined us in singing the same tune: Get married or abstain. Even Minister of Health Dr. Stamps is saying, “Abstain from unlawful acts of sex.” The whole situation really boils down to a need for people to adopt morally acceptable patterns of behavior.

In a way we have lost a component of our cultural fibre because of urbanization and the economic factors governing our lives. We no longer live in a close-knit, extended family unit where young people grew up in the same village or home with grandparents, aunties and uncles. In olden days the young people were taught how to look after their bodies and how to conduct themselves in relationships with members of the opposite sex. Parents encouraged this. They did not want to raise children without morals. Now some people live together outside marriage. Sometimes they move from partner to partner. They do not want to change. Because we no longer have the village teaching forum, I believe the church needs to step in and take the place of grandparents, aunties and uncles to teach our young people. Even preachers should talk about AIDS.
     In my capacity as a lecturer at the Theological College of Zimbabwe, I have ample opportunities to talk to students about this killer. We discuss what the world is saying and compare this to God’s values as taught in the Word.

Some listen and avoid the pitfalls. Others do not and they find themselves facing death. Sometimes they wake up to reality when we bring about a need to answer the question “where will you go after death?” It is a vicious cycle. Young people are the greatest casualties because they do not always want to obey parental teachings. In our culture there was respect for parental teaching. There were no condoms in our culture. We taught respect for ones body until marriage. Now young people despise parental teachings.
     We have a great proverb in SiNdebele “Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili,” meaning those who have walked a certain road are the best guides to those who may desire to walk it too. Our children need to learn to respect parental teaching. In the olden days any adult, known or unknown to the family, related or stranger to the family, could discipline a wayward child. Now life patterns have changed. The ability to read many books and even the widening of many people’s horizons through education have had both a positive and a negative effect. Some people refuse to be guided. They know it all.

I will go beyond 20 years. In our culture young ladies were examined for virginity before marriage. It was a shame if one was found wanting. If a young lady had not looked after her body, this failure became public knowledge at the time of her wedding. Her own people made a hole on a leaf and sent it to her in-laws. That way the family she was marrying into knew that she had lost her virginity. Sometimes on the wedding day the bride’s relatives danced in front of the wedding couple dragging a tattered sack. Everyone knew the significance of this. Sometimes the family of the bride even felt obliged to send a cow to their in-laws. This was a culturally understood way of “restoring the bride” so that she could be acceptable to her in-laws. Now some unmarried people live together outside marriage. Even when parents know about this, they do not do anything.

As far as I can see, it is the only way we can hope to eradicate AIDS and have a healthy nation. As Paul teaches, a man should be the husband of only one wife. As a church elder I am called upon to do a lot of counseling too. Even Christians are sometimes caught up in infidelity. All we can do is teach. Sometimes this even results in the birth of children outside the official marriage. This as you know can cause untold stress to all those involved.

We are living in difficult times. As families we have to look after people dying of AIDS. Since a cure has not yet been found, the best we can do is try and make the lives of the dying as comfortable as possible. They need food and good care. They need love. Our economy has suffered. A sick and weak person cannot work. A sick nation is not productive. The reputation of our country, and indeed of our continent, is at stake. We Christians have an obligation to visit the sick and comfort them. Though their bodies may be dying, we can point them to a better life in Christ. I know many fear infection. We should love and care for people with AIDS but avoid being infected. In our culture if I wear gloves while attending to an AIDS patient, I will be accused of pride. We should close our ears to such accusations and do the best we can. Unless there is a drastic change in people’s lives, many people will find themselves looking after AIDS orphans. As families and as the church, we have to be prepared to care for both the suffering and their offspring.

We all need to work together to fight AIDS. The medical people, the church, the community and the family all need to work together. While I was a pastor at Matopo, the local people from Bezha and Dula did something that I found touching and encouraging. They organized themselves and called for a united prayer day. Believers and non-believers came together to pray. They consider the AIDS scourge as a curse and punishment from God. They met to pray and cry to God. They have been crushed by the death of their children. Many see God as the only answer.

We are grateful to the Westerners. They brought us the Gospel. Now we walk in the light. However, I am sad to say they brought us some bad influences as well. They deceived us while setting a death trap for us. Culturally we had our ways of teaching about abstinence. They came and said sex was for pleasure and anyone could indulge in it. Now they tell us about the use of condoms. All those are foreign to us.
   We thank Mennonite Central Committee for funding and supporting the Brethren In Christ Church AIDS programme. Our coordinator Mrs. Makhwili is doing a good job in teaching people various topics related to AIDS. Many people have been helped. Some spouses have been helped to share their concerns and problems with each other. People have been taught how to better care for people with AIDS. AIDS patients have been taught how to live positively with their problem. I think we are making headway.

For the present it looks like we have to learn to live with AIDS. Let us look after the afflicted and teach the rest of the people around us how to be safe from AIDS.

— A Joint MWC/MCC Release