Fighting the Restavèk Curse in Haiti
Restavèk is a Creole word for a Haitian child who stays with and works for another family. A restavèk child can be a boy or a girl who is given away by a poor family in order to survive. Frequently, the restavèk’s most basic rights to health and education are denied.
Of these children, 65 percent are girls between age 6 and 14. They are forced to work long hours under harsh conditions and are subject to mistreatment, including sexual abuse.
The restavèk child is the first person to wake up in the morning and the last one to go to bed, sometimes after 14 hours of work that consists of, among other chores, carrying water, washing clothes, taking the owner’s children to school, doing errands, and cleaning the home.
The restavèk child is often beaten for the simplest mistakes. Laws against child abuse exist in Haiti, but unfortunately, they are seldom enforced as children’s rights don’t have a high a priority.
The number of restavèk children reported nationally is between 250,000 and 300,000, and this domestic phenomenon is due to several reasons. (more…)
Continue Reading ›The History of Our AIDS Initiative
The Compassion AIDS Initiative has been around for five years. Yep, it’s our fifth anniversary this year!
And in those five years, we have made some incredible strides, taken some risks, and as a result have sustained the lives of more than 20,000 of our beneficiaries, caregivers and siblings.
We began the AIDS Initiative because of an increasing awareness of the impact of HIV and AIDS, specifically in Africa. The virus had already done plenty of damage, and as our programs in Africa grew stronger, we were ready to embark on a new challenge — one that would have an enduring impact, give hope and save countless lives.
As Christians, we felt we had a mandate to do something more to impact the kingdom.
When we first began, the scientific community was still skeptical that Africans with AIDS could take the medicine that would keep them alive. While the sense of urgency was growing, commitments to fund the provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART) were not. (more…)
Continue Reading ›The Last Mile: How Our AIDS Initiative Works
In the global fight against AIDS, the international community has brought access to lifesaving antiretroviral therapy (ART) to many health facilities around the world, but not all. Those lifesaving tablets that travel 10,000 miles sometimes don’t make it far enough.
Why Should We Care About AIDS?
There are many sores in our society, but the one that plagues our world like no other is the AIDS pandemic. Those infected with HIV are treated like lepers and often ignored and shunned.
As the Body of Christ, caring about this disease, which is primarily spread through deviant behavior (though certainly not all the time), it is our chance to do the unexpected … to care for those infected with HIV, no matter the cause.
And with World AIDS Day next week, it’s as good a time as any to act like the person who came to save us.
What Is AIDS?
Many people know the terms HIV and AIDS, and often use them interchangeably, and as a result, incorrectly.
HIV is a virus, the human immunodeficiency virus, one of the most persistent and complicated viruses of all time.
This virus causes the body to become immunodeficient, which means that it causes the body’s immune system to be weakened, which makes the body’s defense system not work as well as it could and as a result, become more susceptible to infections.
AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. AIDS is a result of HIV. It is the last stage of an HIV infection.
A person first gets HIV, and then later, usually years later, will develop AIDS.
A CD4 cell is a type of white blood cell sometimes called a T cell. A person is diagnosed as having AIDS when his or her CD4 cell count drops below a certain level, around 300 cells per millimeters cubed (mm3). The normal range is between 500-1,600 CD4 cells per mm3.
Over time, a person with HIV will lose these cells through destruction by HIV. Then that person will be more vulnerable to infections … opportunistic infections.
Without treatment, the opportunistic infections will eventually claim the life of a person infected with HIV. But treatment is available and it is called ART, which stands for antiretroviral therapy.
Because of the advent of ART, those who once were hopeless and waiting to die now have a second chance. But really why should we care about AIDS? (more…)
Christian Servant Leadership in Action
Every year, graduating Leadership Development Program (LDP) students in the Philippines go to work camp where they engage in community service. The yearly work camp usually engages students in missionary work to unreached tribal groups, but this year the students extended a helping hand to typhoon victims.
I No Longer Sponsor a Child
You know the scene in any coming-of-age movie when a teenage girl is about to go to her first dance and she appears at the top of the stairs and her parent (usually a widowed father) stands there with tears in his eyes and a huge lump in his throat, totally entranced by his daughter’s newly uncovered beauty? That’s how I feel.
AIDS Deaths Worldwide
Here’s question seven in our lead-up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.
Remember when you answer each day’s HIV/AIDS question correctly, you are eligible to win a free CD – your choice of either Portable Sounds by tobyMac or Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. We’ll randomly choose a winner each day from the correct answers.
The answer to yesterday’s question is false.
ART is not a cure for HIV; rather ART prevents the virus from replicating in the body. By stopping HIV from making copies of itself, less virus occurs in the body, which in turn allows the immune system (T cells) to rebuild itself. A stronger immune system can then defend the body and keep a person fairly healthy.
Source: www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/treatment/index.htm, November 2008
Restoring Social Outcasts to Community
Dr. Matt Rindge, assistant professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University and a Compassion Child Advocate, spoke at our National Advocates Conference in October. In his message, he shared two observations about Jesus’ ministry.
- The primary effect of Jesus’ healings was to include social outcasts into community.
Jesus’ healings restored outcasts to community by removing the obstacle that made them outcasts. By eating with outcasts, Jesus welcomed and accepted them just as they were.
With the temple incident He critiqued a system/structure that excluded outcasts on the basis of their race.
- Jesus touched those whom He healed. He was willing to get dirty and even become unclean by touching them.
- Lepers (Mark 1:40–45)
- Bleeding / Hemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:24b-34)
- Jairus’ Daughter (Mark 5:22-24, 35-43)
- Physically Disabled (Mark 2:1-12; 3:1-6; 7:32-37; 10:46-52)
As Compassion Child Advocates we are critical in the work of restoring social outcasts — children in poverty — to community. While I can’t say that I’ve ever healed anybody in Jesus’ name (I’ve tried), I do believe that Jesus is bringing healing through our advocacy — a healing that gives children a voice and that begins to take the poverty out of them.
What I’m especially convicted by is Rindge’s second observation about Jesus’ physical touch. Jesus got dirty, even unclean, according to Jewish law, by doing so.
I confess that a lot of my advocacy hasn’t gone that far.
Wess Stafford, our President and CEO, regularly shares that his mission is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
I love this statement. What’s also true is that the comfortable may afflict you right back. They did Jesus when they denounced Him for reaching out to social outcasts. And if my advocacy doesn’t result in me being marginalized myself, it’s lacking.
As you “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,” are you encountering resistance?
If you are, it’s probably because you look a lot like Jesus.
HIV Antiretroviral Therapy
Here’s question six in our lead-up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.
Remember when you answer each day’s HIV/AIDS question correctly, you are eligible to win a free CD – your choice of either Portable Sounds by tobyMac or Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. We’ll randomly choose a winner each day from the correct answers.
The answer to yesterday’s question is false.
HIV can be passed from a mother to her child in three ways: during pregnancy, during childbirth, or through the breast milk. Even though children may not be infected when they are born, they can still be infected later through their mother’s breast milk.
Simple drug interventions, however, can prevent mother-to-child transmission, which can greatly reduce the overall rate of HIV transmission.
Source: The Skeptic’s Guide to the Global AIDS Crisis by Dale Hanson Bourke (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Authentic Books, 2006), p. 15
Was My Sponsored Child Affected by That Crisis?
In a perfect world, here’s how the process would work:
HIV AIDS Transmission
Here’s question five in our lead-up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.
Remember when you answer each day’s HIV/AIDS question correctly, you are eligible to win a free CD – your choice of either Portable Sounds by tobyMac or Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. We’ll randomly choose a winner each day from the correct answers.
The answer to Friday’s question is 1,000.
During 2007, an average of 1,000 children worldwide became infected each day with HIV, the vast majority of them newborns. Many people living in poverty are never tested and are unaware of their HIV positive status, thus increasing the rate of transmission. An important focus of our AIDS Initiative is the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.
Source: 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic Executive Summary, pg.8
The Happiest Day of a Sponsored Child’s Life
If you can’t visit your children, and we understand that it’s not always possible, you need to know this. It’s an absolute truth. Your sponsored children want to hear from you!