Posted: 6/10/05
| International Mission Board missionary, Gay Wilkinson, counsels a South African woman outside the family center in South Africa. Wilkinson and her husband spent two years working with HIV-positive people. (Photo by Sue Sprenkle) |
Texas couple promotes HIV awareness
By Sue Sprenkle
International Mission Board
MMAMETLHAKE, South Africa–Andy and Gay Wilkinson view their work in South Africa as a matter of life and death.
For the last two years, the couple from First Baptist Church in Grapevine has worked with a group of young adult volunteers promoting HIV awareness.
In a country where one person in six is believed to be HIV-positive and where more than 600 people each day die of AIDS or HIV-related illnesses, their work takes on tremendous urgen-cy.
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| Andy Wilkinson prays with a South African True Love Waits team before a program begins. Wilkinson and his wife, Gay, trained the young adult volunteers in the program transported from the United States. |
The Wilkinsons serve with the International Ser-vice Corps, a two-year program of the Southern Baptist International Mis-sion Board. They train local volunteers in True Love Waits sexual purity presentations and in chronological Bi-ble storying.
“The best way to reach South Africans is not through me,” Wilkinson said. “The way to reach people with this message is through one of their own. We pretty much just found some people who were committed to the message and trained them.”
Hardly anyone talks about HIV/AIDS in this area. Villagers all know the symptoms, but to openly discuss the disease is taboo. People who experience the telltale symptoms of rapid weight loss and lesions are ostracized.
As the disease progresses, a person with AIDS typically ends up hiding in his family's tin shack. Volunteers trained by the Wilkinsons go on daily visits to the shacks. They pray with the sick and their families. They read Scripture and talk about God's love.
The Wilkinsons smile as they talk about many terminally ill people who made decisions to accept Christ as Savior.
One woman dying of HIV-related tuberculosis refused Christ at first. But, after reading some Scrip-tures in her own language, she came to make a profession of faith in Christ.
Her mother no-ticed an immediate change. Despite be-ing emaciated and sickly, the mother noted how bright she was. The daughter told her mother about Jesus.
Two weeks after her daughter died, the mother sat outside her home reading the Bible, and she committed her life to Christ.
“People are dying right and left,” Wilkinson said. “Yes, AIDS is a pandemic, but it's also the greatest opportunity to bring people to Christ. We can't miss his appointed time.”
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