World Aids Day

Life in South Africa has been lived somewhat under the shadow of HIV/AIDS for over a decade now. Conservative statistics put us as having 5.5 million people infected with the virus, which is about 16% of the amount of people infected world-wide. As a result of the pandemic we sit with an ever rising number of orphans, currently at about 1.4 million. And so today my blog post is a call to prayer. Won’t you stop for a second and direct some pray towards the following issues:

• The rate at which the virus is spreading: Pray that God will intervene here.
• The availability of medication: Less than a quarter of those infected in South Africa have adequate access to the right medication.
• Child-headed homes: As more and more parents succumb to the virus, more and more children are having to take over headship of households looking after even younger children
• Abstinence as a solution: Pray that people we see abstinence amongst the un-married as real solution and not something to be scoffed at.
• Faithfulness as a solution: Pray that married couples would be faithful to one another throughout their marriage.
• Discrimination: Pray against the terrible discrimination that some face after being diagnosed with the virus.
• The orphan crisis: Pray that God would raise up emergency parents, foster parents and even parents willing to adopt.
• Pray for our churches: Pray that the redemption they have received in Christ will flow out into acts of love and kindness towards those infected.

Pray for South Africa on World Aids Day. For more information about how to help with the orphan crisis here in Cape Town check out Arise: A ministry to vulnerable children.

Moffat and Adoption

In light of the coming, and existing, orphan crisis in South Africa I’ve been thinking through the Christian response and the varied ways in which the church could possibly respond. Adoption would obviously rank quite high on possible options for response and something that all Christians should think about. Interestingly it is something that great Christians of the past have thought about too. Consider this excerpt from the life of pioneer missionary to the Tswana people in South Africa, Robert Moffat and his wife:

‘In addition to their own children, they also adopted two San (Bushman) orphans in 1822. Moffat had unexpectedly come across a party of San digging a grave for a woman. They were proposing to bury the orphans with her, that they might be cared for by their mother in the shades of the other world, when Moffat begged to adopt them. Rejoicing in the names Dicky and Ann, they became an integral part of his own family.’ Zion City RSA – Kevin Roy, p. 63

Does not Moffat perhaps provide us with the most natural response to such a crisis as members of the heavenly family represented here on earth as the church?

The Coming Orphan Crisis Revised

About a week ago I posted about the coming orphan crisis here in South Africa. I need to revise some of the statistics I gave you. That whole 18 million orphans by 2010 didn’t sit well with me so I did some further research. It turns out that a report that was covered both by the BBC and the New York Times predicted that there will be 18 million AIDS orphans in SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA by 2010 – not SOUTH AFRICA. The figure for SA is somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million which is still staggering but I just thought I should clarify.

Maybe this just means that we not only have to suggest a way forward here in SA but seriously consider extending ourselves across our northern borders to Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya, etc. etc.

The Coming Orphan Crisis

***Please note that I have revised the statistics found on this post. The accurate stats can be found here.*** 

Some statistics are predicting that by 2010 there will about approximately 18 million orphans in South Africa due mainly to the loss of life caused by HIV/AIDS. Now if those figures are even in the same ball-park as what the reality is going to be in 2010 then I think its correct to suggest that in South Africa we are heading into an orphan crisis of staggering proportions. Other factors are making the problem even more acute: I recently discovered that established orphan care projects like the SOS Children’s Villages are sitting with empty beds due to the new government grant which pays out R500 (I think) a month to relatives willing to look after orphaned children. Now it sounds great in theory, the problem is that many distant relatives are now appearing on the scene and claiming the orphans just so they can benefit from the grant. Consequently the orphans are neglected and abused whilst these ‘relatives’ uses the money for their own gain and benefit.

Churches need to respond to this coming crisis by investigating alternative orphan-care programmes and centers. The problem is so big that we cannot afford not to act. Individual Christians need to think about such things as adoption and foster care, or perhaps, if one is a relative of some sort to an orphaned child, make use of the grant as it was intended to love and care for the orphan. I really think we need to see this for the crisis that it really is and then we need to get up and act.