He Intends Victory Real-life stories Of Christians living with AIDS by Dan Wooding He Intends Victory 8 Pasteur Irvine, California 92618 1-800-HIV-HOPE www.HeIntendsVictory.com Village Books Publishing Irvine, CA 1 He Intends Victory Copyright 1994 by He Intends Victory Irvine, California Second Printing 1995 Third Printing 1996 Fourth Printing 1998 Fifth Printing 1999 Sixth Printing 2000 Seventh Printing 2001 Eighth Printing 2003 Ninth Printing 2005 Edited by The Group Printed in the United States of America ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without the prior, written consent of the publisher. Scripture is from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data Wooding, Dan He Intends Victory Thanks to Mike McIntyre for formatting this book. Also thanks to Jerry Carlson and Aaron Sonnenberg for their cover designs and Kristina Watanabe from IMAGEering for all of her help. ISBN 0-939497-33-6 2 Foreword I have a friend who works in the leper colonies on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. A church was established as God has begun to move in the lives of those forsaken people. My friend has put flesh and blood on the gospel of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t say, “Let me tell you how Jesus loves you.” He says, “Let me show you.” I asked him once what he considers to be the greatest change he has seen in the lives of these men and women. Without hesitation, he said, “Now, they can look you in the eyes. God has restored their dignity.” We live today in a generation of excess and abandon. Everything became permissible, and now, all across our country, there are wounded lives behind closed doors. When I was co-host of the 700 Club at the Christian Broadcasting Network, I received a letter from a fifteen-year-old boy. He told me he was gay, that he had had several homosexual lovers, but that he wanted to leave this lifestyle and live in a new way. He had watched the program the previous week and had prayed with me to give his life to Christ. I said on the show that if you had prayed and surrender your life to Christ, then tell someone and get involved in a good local church. The following Sunday, full of joy and excitement over his new life this young man went to a church in his neighborhood and, at the end of the service, he went to talk with the pastor. He shared a little of his story and was told, “There’s no room for ‘fags’ in this church.” He was writing to me to say goodbye. What I told him sounded good, but it didn’t work in the cold, hard world. There was no address. I could only pray for God to be merciful to this broken boy. AIDS is a deadly condition that has or will touch many of our lives. How will we respond? Some of the people you will meet in this book—or in your life—are victims of a blood transfusion or have partners with a double life. Others have fallen prey to this plague though lifestyle choices. As a Christian, I believe the cause is irrelevant because the call remains the same: Love unconditionally as Christ has loved us. Will we embrace the “lepers” of our day and see their dignity restored as their broken lives are bound up by the love of Calvary? Who will show them this love—you and me? We can spend the next year hiding away in our comfortable corners talking about the love of God, or we can follow the example of Pastor Bruce Sonnenberg who you will meet in this challenging book by Dan Wooding. We can get involved in the lives of those who need to be touched and held. We can let them see how Jesus loves them. Sheila Walsh 3 Introduction Jonathan’s Rejection Jonathan is eight. He has bright eyes and a brilliant smile. He also has AIDS. Infected when just eighteen hours old through a blood transfusion, Jonathan has learned to live with his mortality and is looking forward to “seeing Jesus and being made all better.” Seeing your child struggle with AIDS is obviously a tremendous struggle. His mother, Sheila, sought support and acceptance from the churches in their Rocky Mountain community, knowing she could not continue to handle the stress alone. Three churches responded in the same way. “You may come to church, if you leave your son at home.” Hurt by rejection and unable to deal with the daily demands of AIDS, Sheila and Jonathan found compassion and mercy outside the church. As the epidemic expands, support groups for families dealing with AIDS are being formed so these critical needs can be met, but most of them are being organized by non-Christians. “AIDS is a challenge unlike most others the 21tst Century American church has faced,” says Shepherd Smith, founder of Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy based in Washington, D.C. In his “The Church’s Response to the Challenge of AIDS/HIV,” Smith says, “Although the problem is enormous and multi-faceted, it grieves us to think that even one brave boy who loves Jesus has been turned away by the church. The tragedy is that there are thousands of Jonathans across the nation (around the world) whom the church has feared and rejected.” Smith goes on to say, “In contemporary society the demands on the local church are great and AIDS is often seen as just one more demand. But experts tell us that ... every person will know at least one individual infected by HIV. That means every church in the United States will ultimately have to address the issue.” My First Meeting With Herb Hall The inscription in the brand-new Bible said it all. Herb Hall had written, “To Dan Wooding from Herb Hall. He Intends Victory.” Herb Hall heard a weekly broadcast I did with Austin Hill on KYMS radio in Orange, California, in which I had explained that my car had been broken into and my Bible had been stolen. Within hours, Herb was at my office in Garden Grove with a new Bible that he “felt led of God” to give to me. As I looked into the sparkling eyes of Herb, I was immediately impressed with this young man and his caring attitude. A few months later, that Bible accompanied me to Essen, Germany, where I worked as a writer/broadcaster with Billy Graham for his historic Mission Europe crusade. The veteran crusader for Christ was conducting the most far-reaching mission of his nearly fifty years as an evangelist. Each night, Mr. Graham’s sermons were interpreted into 44 languages and were transmitted by eight satellite up-links to 1,400 venues across Europe in fifty- six countries, including many in the former Soviet Union. One of those interpreters was from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He expressed his deep desire to own an English Bible, so I handed him Herb’s Bible and a copy of Herb’s incredible testimony, which you are about to read. Now, thousands of miles from Herb’s home in Southern California, a Georgian Christian is being blessed by Herb’s kindness. My friendship with Herb led to Mike Hylton, who lived a victorious life in Christ, despite suffering from an extraordinary set of problems that would drive most of us to black despair. Then, Pastor Bruce Sonnenberg from The Village Church of Irvine came into my life. This loving cleric has set an example of Christ’s love that 5 prompted me to want to write this book which I trust will impact your life as no other book, except the Bible, has ever done. AIDS First Discovered According to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, AIDS was first described in June of 1981 as “an unusual disease that was causing primarily young homosexual men to lose their ability to fight off otherwise common and non-harmful diseases.” GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), as it was first called, soon took the name of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. It was shown to affect anyone who was either sexually or through intravenous means infected by some agent, which caused the immune system to be compromised over time. The causative agent for AIDS was a virus first discovered by Dr. Robert Gallo, an American, and Dr. Luc Montagnier, a Frenchman, who called their discoveries HTLV1 and LAV, respectively. Ultimately, the virus became known and is recognized today as the Human Inmmunodefiency Virus, or HIV. After the discovery of the virus, a test for detecting its presence was soon developed. By understanding the properties of the antibodies the body produces to defend itself against HIV, scientists were able to establish its presence. The discoveries of the virus and the tests for its antibodies have allowed us to understand a great deal about the modes of transmission, the progressive nature of infection, and the devastating effect it has on the body over time. A Worldwide Epidemic “Once the discovery of this disease was made in the early 1980s, scientists sought evidence of where it had originated to better understand its transmission characteristics, as well as gain insight into how to treat it and end its spread,” said Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy. “As information came in increasing amounts to the Centers for Disease Control, it became apparent that the United States was not the only country struggling with this newly discovered disease.