Uganda 2-26-07

There is not much to report from Uganda this week. We are all hanging tight until the move to Jinja tomorrow. The week has been filled with reading, watching movies, drinking coffee, and catching up on the myriad of stories that everyone is coming back with.

Since there is not much to catch up on, I will try to give everyone a sense of the HIV/AIDS situation in Uganda. Let me just say that there is much more coverage here than in Ethiopia. I have never seen so many NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) vehicles and workers in my whole life. They range anywhere from World Vision to an org called Send-A-Cow… yeah, cows are pretty important. There are not nearly as many condom adds here in comparison to Ethiopia. In Addis Ababa, they were on every corner and hanging in every shop; I have only seen one here. The government has championed a program called ABC, the foundation (A) is abstinence which is the only way to prevent yourself from contracting the virus. The B stands for Being faithful in marriage, and the last resort, C, is using a condom if you cannot follow A or B. It is actually working wonders in Uganda because it is the only country in Africa where the number of infections per year is actually dropping since the new program started. It has been met with much opposition from the United States (Bill Clinton and others) as well as some NGO’s who provide anti-AIDS funding to Uganda. They claim that it is wrong that the government tells people how to live (being abstinent and faithful…hmm) and that all of the prevention awareness should be concentrated on condom usage… Out of all the countries in Africa, Uganda is the ONE where infection rates are dropping and people’s lives are being saved… Why stop a program that is working? It is also the one that is based on moral living, which is why it is receiving such opposition.

We attended a church on Sunday that has taken the fight against HIV/AIDS to a personal level. The church is held at the most prestigious university in Uganda, and a youth groups meets on Saturday night on campus called Prime Time at the Pool and has music and dramas that advocate abstinence and faithfulness. The pastor is very outspoken on HIV as well and will be spending the next week traveling with a new film that he helped with. There are many others that are very involved in the fight, so its very encouraging to be here. At the same time it is sad that other countries are not having this kind of success. I’m sure that a lot of success has come from the release of the film “Invisible Children” that was filmed in a town in northern Uganda called Gulu. Ever since then, Uganda has become a very popular place for NGO’s and aid workers, as well as many tourists wanting to see the situation with their own eyes.

Will it take a film in every country in Africa to get the help of the rest of the world? For Africa’s sake, I hope not…

By the time most of you read this, Lucy Burrows will be on her way to meet us in Uganda. She is the coordinator of the International HIV/AIDS conference that our team will be organizing in Jinja. Pray for her safety and our safety as well as we head up to Jinja on Tuesday afternoon. We are all looking forward to getting started doing the work. We are all very excited to see what the Lord is going to do through us as well.

Love and Grace through Christ,

John