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Adopt-A-People. It Is Difficult to Sustain A AIDS and Mission Adopt-a-People. It is difficult to sustain a mis- birth has declined—to 37 years in Uganda, for sion focus on the billions of people in the world example, the lowest global life expectancy. By or even on the multitudes of languages and cul- 2010 a decline of 25 years in life expectancy is tures in a given country. Adopt-a-people is a mis- predicted for a number of African and Asian sion mobilization strategy that helps Christians countries. In Zimbabwe it could reduce life ex- get connected with a specific group of people pectancy from 70 to 40 years in the next 15 who are in spiritual need. It focuses on the goal years. Sub-saharan Africa, with less than 10 per- of discipling a particular people group (see PEO- cent of the world’s population, has 70 percent of PLES, PEOPLE GROUPS), and sees the sending of the world’s population infected with HIV. missionaries as one of the important means to Asia, the world’s most populous region, is fulfill that goal. poised as the next epicenter of the epidemic. Ini- Adopt-a-people was conceptualized to help tially spread in the region primarily by drug in- congregations focus on a specific aspect of the jection and men having sex with men, heterosex- GREAT COMMISSION. It facilitates the visualization ual transmission is now the primary cause of of the real needs of other people groups, enables infection. It is expected that child mortality in the realization of tangible accomplishments, de- Thailand, where the sex-tourism industry has fu- velops and sustains involvement, and encourages eled the epidemic, will triple in the next 15 years more meaningful and focused prayer. A people without a sharp decline in the rate of HIV infec- group focus helps Christians to maintain an em- tion. Latin America and the Caribbean, with 8.4 phasis on the goal of reaching a people group percent of the world’s population, have 11.5 per- and then discipling Christians from within that cent of the HIV infection. Primarily a homosex- people. Churches in the people group are also ual and bisexual epidemic initially, heterosexual helped to evangelize their own people and even- contact is becoming the primary mode of trans- tually to send out their own missionaries. mission, with needle sharing also being com- Adopt-a-people does not mean that a church mon. or mission organization is adopting a group into Of the 8,500 new cases of HIV infection which their own organization or that no other churches occur daily, 90 percent are in the developing or groups can work with that particular people. world. Much of Eastern Europe and most coun- Rather, the goal of adopt-a-people is to be used tries in the former Soviet Union, relatively free of by God to see a people adopted into his heavenly AIDS prior to the political shifts of the late family. Thus, the implementation of the adopt-a- 1980s, are in the earlier stages of the epidemic, people concept requires maintaining a commit- as are Bangladesh, the Philippines, parts of ment until the Great Commission is fulfilled in China, and India. the targeted group. In pragmatic terms, the min- Key Issues. The economic and social impact imal involvement for a church (or fellowship) of AIDS in the developing world is profound be- using the adopt-a-people idea is to provide in- cause it characteristically affects adults during formed, dedicated prayer for the targeted people the most economically productive ages of 15 to group. Other levels of involvement range from 25. A Kenyan study estimated labor costs for logistical or research help to financial support to some businesses could increase by 23 percent short-term projects among the targeted people due to absenteeism, the cost of training new group and even the commissioning and support workers, death benefits, and health care costs by of long-term missionaries from the adopting or- the year 2005. Service agencies strain to meet de- ganization. mands created by the epidemic, and extended TERRY J. RILEY family systems stagger under the burden of in- Bibliography. IJFM 12:1 (January–March 1995). creased dependents and decreasing numbers of providers. In heavily affected areas of Asia and Africa 30 to 50 percent of household income is AIDS and Mission. A Global Overview. AIDS (ac- devoted to care of family members with AIDS quired immune-deficiency syndrome), as a and funeral expenses may cost a year’s income. global pandemic, has provided a unique chal- Populations with behaviors that put them at lenge and opportunity to the church: a challenge high risk for HIV infection include prostitutes to deal with life’s most fundamental moral and and their clients, prisoners, long-distance truck- ethical issues, and an opportunity for service to ers, homosexual and bisexual men, soldiers, po- those in need. lice officers, and migrant workers. Sexual trans- Appearing in the late 1970s, AIDS is currently mission of the virus is more efficient from men one of the most critical health problems in the to women than from women to men. Women world. By 2020 there will be an estimated 55 mil- also have higher levels of undiagnosed sexually lion cases of HIV (human immunodeficiency transmitted diseases. Worldwide, these two fac- virus) infection. In African countries with ad- tors mean that women are becoming infected at vanced HIV/AIDS epidemics life expectancy at faster rates than men. 1 Alienation Wealthy countries have access to the antiretro- Youth at the Crossroads has developed Life at virals and other drugs that prolong the lives of the Crossroads, a substantial educational curric- HIV-positive individuals. Worldwide 90 percent ulum program that addresses AIDS from a posi- of those infected are not aware of their infection, tive biblical viewpoint. due to lack of access to costly AIDS tests. The Agencies promoting networking among the rise of tuberculosis (TB) rates is directly cor- many Christian AIDS initiatives, often modest related to HIV prevalence and inversely cor- programs linked to a local church or as related with the quality of TB programs. free-standing grass-roots organizations, have Responding to the AIDS Pandemic: Interna- been particularly valuable in strengthening the tional Agencies, Governments, Nongovernment global response of churches. AIDS Intercessors, Organizations (NGOs), and Churches. The for example, provides a monthly prayer diary World Health Organization’s Global Program on with updates on the AIDS programs of more AIDS, under the dynamic leadership of Jonathan than forty Christian groups. Others agencies Mann, initiated a global response to HIV/AIDS have multiple affiliates. AIDS Care Education during the first decade of the epidemic. Subse- and Training (ACET), based in London and quently, UNAIDS has been the United Nation’s started by Patrick Dixon, has prevention and agency coordinating the global response. Minis- care programs in Romania, Thailand, Tanzania, tries of Health throughout the world, often deal- Uganda, and throughout the United Kingdom. ing with multiple discreet epidemics in their HIV/AIDS has unquestionably provided the countries, have become deeply involved in re- church with one of its greatest challenges and sponses to AIDS as their populations have been most significant opportunities for ministry—and affected by the epidemic. USAID (United States the church is responding. Agency for International Development) has pro- EVVY CAMPBELL vided strategic leadership and significant fund- ing through AIDSCAP (AIDS Control and Pre- Bibliography. G. Capdevila, Inter Press Service En- vention Project). NGOs have also played a glish News Wire, Nov. 28, 1997; P. Dixon, The Truth About AIDS; D. Dortzbach, AIDS in Kenya: The crucial role in responding to AIDS. MAP Interna- Church’s Challenge; H. Dunphy, The Columbian, Nov. 3, tional, a Christian NGO working to build the ca- 1997, A-2; D. E. Fountain, Care of Persons with AIDS in pacity of churches in East and southern Africa, a Christian Hospital; E. B. Marks, Jr., Life at the Cross partnered with the Association of Evangelicals in Roads: An Educational Curriculum Program from Youth Africa and the Evangelical Association of Uganda at the Crossroads. in 1994 to bring 150 participants from 28 coun- tries for the All Africa AIDS and the Church Con- sultation, held in Kampala, Uganda. A powerful Alienation. Alienation describes the sense of declaration to the church resulted from the con- deprivation and marginalization of persons who ference, urging that AIDS issues become a prior- perceive that their once-fulfilled lives, or the lives ity on the agenda of the church. Local initiatives, to which they aspired, have lost their sense or such as the Kenya Christian AIDS Network possibility of personal fulfillment and satisfac- (Kenyan CAN or KCAN), with more than 30 tion. Alienation may be attributed to a loss of branches meeting regularly, sprang up within norms, values, and a reassuring worldview, often two years after the conference. brought about by abrupt change. This state cor- A number of Christian AIDS programs are responds to the condition denoted by the term linked to mission hospitals. Under the leadership ANOMIE. But alienation may also be linked to of Major Ruth Schoch, a Swiss Salvation Army other disadvantages, including discrimination, office nurse and midwife who had already served exclusion, dislocation, the ravages of war and twenty years in the Republic of Zambia, a Beth- other human conflict, changes in technological any Ward for the terminally ill was established in and social organization, and oppressive political 1987 and a significant community-based initia- systems—which refer not just to subjective states tive addressing AIDS was initiated at the Salva- but to concrete conditions. The concept of alien- tion Army’s Chikankata Hospital.
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