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PRESS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference
September 2, 2003

Interest in AIDS Pandemic Crowds Workshops

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — Some people don't believe Ephraim Disi has HIV. He is a Brethren in Christ pastor and he looks healthy and energetic.

"I've gathered the courage to speak openly about my status," Disi, of Malawi, told about 200 people Aug. 16 at a workshop on AIDS during the Mennonite World Conference assembly.

"I ask God, 'Can you keep me for another five years, for another 10 years?'"

Disi, 45, was diagnosed with HIV, the AIDS virus, in 1996. He was infected by his wife, who has since died. He said she must have been infected by a medical accident.

Now, he is contributing to the fight against AIDS by setting an example of openness about the disease and by teaching moral behavior.

"I encourage parents to take the role of teaching their own children," Disi said. "The message to youth must be abstinence."

The tragedy of AIDS in Africa — where the disease claims 6,500 lives a day — was the subject of several seminars at the MWC assembly.

Participants told how African Anabaptists and foreign workers are offering compassionate ministries and moral teaching in response to the AIDS pandemic.

In Ethiopia, the Meserete Kristos Church, the nation's Anabaptist denomination, strongly encourages engaged couples to get tested for HIV. The MKC will not marry a couple if one member is HIV-positive, said Samson Estifanos, national director of the church's AIDS prevention program.

The MKC has 475 AIDS orphans among its families, Estifanos said. An AIDS orphan is defined as a child who has had at least one parent die of an AIDS-related illness, or whose wage-earning parent cannot work due to AIDS.

Nationally, Ethiopia has one million AIDS orphans, Estifanos said.

"We are looking at a future of dysfunctional adults who do not know how to be spouses or parents," said Ruth Thiessen, a Mennonite Central Committee worker in Botswana.

For some families, the problem of AIDS orphans is overwhelming.

"I met a woman who has 30 orphans to care for," Thiessen said. "What will happen when she dies?"

Easter Siziba, chair of the BIC Church AIDS project in Zimbabwe, said one in three Zimbabweans is infected with HIV. Life expectancy has fallen from 67 to 27 since the early 1980s. Thirty percent of those who are 15 will not live to be 30.

The Zimbabwean BIC Church has a program of home-based care for AIDS patients, Siziba said. The church stresses sexual abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within it.

Poverty is an obstacle to AIDS treatment, said Esther Kawira, a doctor in Tanzania who said she had not found one AIDS patient able to afford antiretroviral drugs."

MCC has eight workers in Africa serving specifically in HIV/AIDS ministries, said Sarah Adams, MCC's HIV/AIDS coordinator, who helped lead the workshops.

"AIDS is a global emergency," said Swana Falang of Congo. "I am ready to fight against AIDS to save humanity."

Mennonite World Conference release by Paul Schrag for Meetinghouse