Prayer guide focuses on people with serious illnesses
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Health professionals at the Maua Methodist
Hospital in Kenya look at an outdated Upper Room devotional that has
been used for years in a hospital waiting room.
A UMNS photo by Don Messer.
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By Kathy L. Gilbert*
Nov. 30, 2006 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)
"The cry of my heart is a cure for HIV and AIDS worldwide."
Those
are the words of Mathabo L. of South Africa, one of the writers living
with HIV/AIDS who has contributed to a special prayer book for people
suffering with serious diseases.
Prayers for Encouragement: Hope for Persons Living with HIV & AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Other Serious Diseases is being printed by Upper Room Ministries in partnership with the Africa Upper Room Office.
The English edition will be available for World AIDS Day, Dec. 1.
Editions in French, Portuguese, Kiswahili, IsiZulu and other languages
will be available in early 2007.
The idea for the prayer book was born when the Rev. Don Messer,
executive director of the Center for the Church and Global AIDS,
discovered copies of the Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide in the waiting room of Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya.
There is a large population of Methodists and a "raging epidemic of
HIV/AIDS" in the Meru area of Kenya, according to Messer. Many people
come to the hospital to be tested, get counseling and be treated with
anti-retroviral drugs. "It's a pretty stressful time when people come to
be tested and face these issues," he said.
Seeing the battered, 10-year-old copies of the devotional guide in
the waiting room prompted Messer to contact Upper Room Ministries about
publishing a special collection of prayers for people suffering with
HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
He realized that people sitting in the waiting room "must have been
worrying and thinking and praying, and they'd turned to these Upper Room magazines for guidance and support," he said.
"Where there is human suffering and crisis, Upper Room Ministries
wants to provide openings to God's healing and reconciling grace," said
the Rev. Stephen D. Bryant, editor and publisher of The Upper Room Devotional Guide. "When Dr. Don Messer contacted us, we knew this was consistent with who God has called us to be."
Growing crisis
Since 1981, the U.S. AIDS epidemic has been steadily growing, and by
the beginning of 2005, more than 1 million people were estimated to be
living with HIV and approximately 415,000 were living with AIDS. AIDS is
believed to have killed more than half a million Americans, nearly 10
times the number killed in the Vietnam War.
On the African continent, 25 million adults and children - most of
them in sub-Saharan countries - are living with HIV/AIDS. Every week,
nearly 40,000 Africans die of the disease.
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The Rev. Donald Messer
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"Governments can bring and must bring needed medicines and programs and
the church can participate in those, but the church has a special role
in providing spiritual comfort and strength and prayers for
encouragement to people in need, " Messer said.
The meditations in Prayers for Encouragement represent the
faith journeys of people who live with HIV/AIDS and those involved in
HIV/AIDS-related services. Two United Methodist bishops, along with
well-known medical and church leaders, are among the writers.
Though this is the first time Upper Room Ministries has specifically
published a resource for HIV/AIDS, it has provided booklets of
meditations and prayer to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and their
families, people in the path of the Asian tsunami, and churches affected
by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
Upper Room Ministries, part of the United Methodist Board of
Discipleship, compiled the booklet in conjunction with the Center for
the Church and Global AIDS. The project is being funded by friends and
supporters of Upper Room Ministries and the center.
The booklet will be distributed through Upper Room Ministries' global
editorial and distribution network; United Methodist leaders, clergy
and lay people who are in ministry with those affected by HIV/AIDS; and
community, national and international health and service organizations.
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn. Information for this story was provided by Jeanette
Pinkston, director of media relations, United Methodist Board of
Discipleship.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
World AIDS Day 2006
HIV/AIDS
Upper Room Ministries
MethoPedia Page: AIDS
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