AIDS Stories
At the Faith Alive clinic in Jos, Nigeriaby Ryan Day
Ryan Day is a graphic artist for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. For several weeks this year, he accompanied his wife Hillary to Nigeria, where she - a joint MD/PhD student at the University of Wisconsin - worked in an AIDS clinic. Ryan served the clinic out of his training in graphics. During the coming weeks, Ryan will be telling his story, and the stories of four different patients at the clinic. With this series, urbana.org is privileged to explore two threads at once: one person using his particular and artistic skills in mission; and the voices of four representatives of a stigmatized and silenced mass of people in our world.
Our first contact with Faith Alive clinic came through a friend in our InterVarsity Grad Fellowship group who had grown up in Jos, Nigeria. She had known Drs. Chris and Mercy Isichei personally for many years through the Christian community in Jos. This wonderful Nigerian couple, both physicians, started Faith Alive out of their home about ten years ago out of a personal calling to help the poorest of the poor in their area.
The ministry eventually grew from front-room consultations into a full-fledged medical clinic, along with a food bank, counseling services and job training for those in need. To this day, they charge exactly the same amount for all of their services – nothing. As a result, they often end up serving the poorest and sickest people, who have no other alternatives. And in this day and age in West Africa, that often means people who are HIV positive.
The day before my wife and I got on the plane, we were told that the clinic had burned to the ground. All of our planning up to that point had gone smoothly – flights and visas had been straightforward to arrange, and our communications with our hosts had been clear and encouraging. Then this news came. We wondered if we should cancel the trip, after all of our preparation. We wondered if God really wanted us to go. After a few attempts, we were able to contact some people in Nigeria who were able to tell us that the fire had not completely destroyed the clinic, and they could still use our help. So with some prayer and (I admit) some misgivings, we headed out the door.
It was into this demanding setting that my wife and I entered. My training is in art and graphic design, and my initial thought was that I might be the least useful person on earth to volunteer at a medical clinic in Nigeria. My wife was an obvious fit – she is an MD/PhD student studying infectious diseases. The best I could offer was a handshake and a smile, healthcare-wise.
Instead we found a beautiful surprise. Faith Alive’s directors had been specifically praying for a person with my background to come, and they had a whole set of projects waiting for me. They were celebrating their tenth anniversary and the beginning of their U.S. fund-raising foundation, so they wanted to produce a whole new set of printed materials to help raise awareness about who they are and what they are doing. This is almost exactly what I do in the U.S. – the clinic directors saw it as an answer to prayer, and I can say the same. I would never have thought my skills could be so helpful in such a different context, but God works in mysterious ways.
The need can be overwhelming at times; Nigeria has a roughly 5% HIV infection rate among the entire population, which doesn’t sound so bad until you factor in that Nigeria’s population is the largest of any African country. That means Nigeria has around 3,300, 000 people living with HIV (2003).
But these are just numbers. At the ground level, what this means is that nearly everyone in Nigeria has had a friend or family member get infected in the last ten years, and many of these people have died, leaving behind wives, husbands, and children. I talked to several people about how they discovered their HIV-positive status, and all of them told me they decided to get tested after their spouse had died. This is heartbreaking stuff.
Worse, there is no easy way to treat HIV or prevent new infections – it involves a lot of money, time, education and prayer. HIV/AIDS demands a holistic approach, because unless you address all the issues you might as well not address any. For example: for the lucky patients who can afford drug therapy, or who can get it free through a few programs (like PEPFAR or UNAIDS), they still often need food support to get decent nutrition and stay healthy. They can’t afford food because they have often lost jobs due to a combination of poor health and social stigma, so they need to be trained in new, viable careers.
They need community, since this same stigma prevents them from interacting in social circles with non-infected people. Ignore any of these issues (and there are many more) and you fail to address the true impact that HIV has on people.
Over the next few weeks, I will be telling the stories of some of the people I worked with, talked with and lived with for eight weeks, and they each offer a unique perspective on what it means to be living positively with HIV. Come back each week to meet someone new!
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Emmanuel | Naomi | Ezra | Mercy |
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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