| Five Stories of Faith, Hope and
AIDS
“I heard a voice say to me, ‘There’s one
more person you need to help.’”
TIM’S STORY
Tim (who asked us to withhold
his last name) is a Seattle Pacific University alumnus living with
AIDS. To combat the disease, Tim takes the current state-of-the-art
treatment: the “AIDS cocktail,” which in his case is a daily regimen
of 72 pills. However, his doctors tell him that the medications no
longer seem to be doing their job. Tim is running out of treatment
options and knows his remaining time may be short.
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| “Personal faith that God
has a plan for me here, and my friends, are what has kept me
going,” says Tim. |
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Tim earned his degree from Seattle Pacific in the early 1970s.
Partway through graduate school, he ran out of money, decided to
get a job, and began a career in international sales and marketing
for a foreign airline. “I was so successful and having so much fun
that I got to the point where I didn’t have time to spend in the
Bible and in prayer anymore,” he explains. “Later on, I told God
to get out of my life, because I didn’t have time for him, I didn’t
need him, and also because the guilt I was feeling was interfering
with what I wanted to do.”
But in 1994, a 130-mph crash on Germany’s Autobahn left Tim and several
of his friends seriously injured. He made a difficult recovery and regarded
the experience as a spiritual wake-up call.
Three years later, he was diagnosed with HIV. He may have contracted
the virus from infected blood in the crash, but doesn’t know for sure.
He kept his illness a secret at work — “If they had known, I would have
been terminated on the spot” — but says he still encountered rejection
in both church and social circles: “I could watch people literally back
up several steps away from me if they found out I was HIV-positive.”
At University Presbyterian Church, where he is now a member, he started
a support group for Christians with HIV/AIDS in the greater Seattle area.
Many members of the group, he says, were asked to leave their churches
because they were HIV-positive. His goal is to bring those people back
to a relationship with God and to get them into churches that will accept
them.
Tim lives in a Seattle apartment surrounded by plants and classical music
recordings. Though he is no longer well enough to work, he keeps busy.
In addition to leading the support group, he has served as a “Stephen
minister” to help church members in crisis; participated in an AIDS Care-Team
through Multifaith Works; become a spiritual mentor to several college
students; and spoken in other churches about his experience and God’s
faithfulness.
Just before he lost consciousness in the 1994 car crash, Tim recalls, “Very
distinctly I heard a voice say to me, ‘There’s one more person you need
to help.’” He isn’t sure whether he’s met that person yet — but he’s
lost track of the number of lives he has touched. “God still has a definite
plan and purpose for me,” he says confidently. “He’s allowing me to reach
out and help others who are hurting.”
“I’ve had people say, ‘Well, everybody dies of something.’”
MARTI’S STORY
In many African countries, governments are overwhelmed by the responsibility
of caring for citizens with AIDS. Marti Oaks Ensign ’52 and Leonard Ensign ’51
are among the Seattle Pacific University alumni who serve on the front
lines of the battle against AIDS in Africa.
Retired medical missionaries — she’s a lab technician, he’s an anesthesiologist — they
worked full-time in Free Methodist hospitals in Rwanda and Burundi during
the 1960s. AIDS was unknown then, but since the outbreak of the disease,
the Ensigns return regularly to those hospitals, bringing volunteer teams
of physicians and dentists to help treat people with HIV.
On these trips, Marti serves as coordinator and translator — she speaks
French, the colonial language, as well as Kirundi, the native tongue — and
Leonard rolls up his sleeves and helps in surgery. “When he goes to Africa,
he gets unretired,” observes Marti. “They don’t care whether your license
is current or not; they just want help.”
While in Africa, the Ensigns work alongside another pair of SPU alumni,
medical doctor Frank Ogden ’57 and Carol Watson Ogden ’71, whose service
with Free Methodist World Missions in Burundi has been interrupted only
by the region’s bouts of political and ethnic turmoil. “Very often, Frank
has been the only Western doctor in Burundi who has had the courage to
stick around,” says Marti.
HIV infection rates in some African countries are running as high as
30 percent. “AIDS is not a homosexual disease in Africa,” explains Marti. “Homosexuality
there is almost totally unknown.” However, she says, promiscuity and
prostitution are common, and many people are malnourished and suffer
from other sexually transmitted diseases, leaving them more susceptible
to the virus. The numbers are staggering: Today, 28.1 million people
in Africa are infected with HIV, and 2.3 million died in 2001. Eleven
million African children are AIDS orphans — a number that’s projected
to more than double by the end of the decade.
Marti is aware of these grim statistics, but isn’t deterred by them. “I
think our number one priority in our hospitals is to make sure that patients
know about their final destination,” she says, “and then we minister
not only to their physical bodies, but to their spirits and their families.”
Both at home and abroad, Marti has encountered indifference. Sometimes,
she recounts, when she counsels Africans against risky behavior, “I’ve
had people say, ‘Well, everybody dies of something.’ They obviously have
never seen an AIDS death, because it’s truly a terrible way to die.” And
in America, she observes, the question for the church is whether or not
to obey the Bible’s call to be compassionate — not only to AIDS victims
but also to their survivors: “It comes down to support of families. What
are you going to do with all these orphans and widows?”
“If we can’t find healing in the church, where else
can we go?”
KELLEY’S STORY
In a world where AIDS can complicate relationships,
Kelley Bourland Unger ’83 took a leap of faith. The program and
budget manager in Seattle Pacific University’s School of Psychology,
Family and Community married her husband, Tom, knowing that he
was HIV-positive.
Tom experienced several incidents of sexual abuse in his youth. One of
the perpetrators, a youth pastor from another church in his hometown,
later died of AIDS. Like many victims of such abuse, Tom battled to regain
a sense of selfworth, and turned for a while to a sexually promiscuous
lifestyle. In 1984, he learned he had contracted HIV, although he didn’t
know where or when.
Despite his lifestyle, Tom remained in the church and recommitted his
life to Christ in 1983. He was attending First Free Methodist Church
in Seattle and working at SPU as a sign-language interpreter when he
and Kelley met. As they got to know one another, he gradually told her
about his past and about his infection. She didn’t reject him.
“God brought Tom into my life to expand my experience of God and my ability to
trust,” says Kelley. “It was not a struggle to make the decision to marry him,
but it was a struggle to decide how much we were going to share with other people.” They
married in 1986, and always took precautions to prevent Kelley from contracting
the virus. They didn’t tell anyone about Tom’s HIV status until 15 months later.
Once their secret was out, the Ungers not only found support within their
families and their church, they also began a ministry, speaking in churches
and schools across Western Washington to raise HIV awareness until Tom’s
death in 1994.
“Many times when we would share our story, people would open up and share the
secrets in their own lives,“ says Kelley. “It saddens me to think of how many
people are keeping AIDS, addictions, abortions — and a myriad of other things — from
each other because of fear. The church is a place for brokenness; everyone is
human; and no one’s sin is worse than another’s sin. If we can’t share our humanness
and find healing in the church, where else can we go?”
“I felt a strong leading to get involved and start to change things in my own
small way.”
TRACY’S STORY
“I’d always felt that the church hadn’t done a really good job of responding
to the AIDS crisis,” says Tracy Cooper, Seattle Pacific University’s media relations
manager. “I felt a strong leading by the Holy Spirit to get involved and to start
to change things in my own small way.”
Like a number of other SPU faculty, staff and students, Tracy serves
on a CareTeam with Multifaith Works, a Seattle-based organization that
has a 14-year history of serving AIDS patients. Founded by the late Gwen
Beighle, a chaplain at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, Multifaith
Works organizes people from various faith backgrounds into “CareTeams,” each
of which is responsible for a “CarePartner” — a person infected with
HIV. Teams support their Care-Partners by helping out with household
duties, meals or transportation; through emotional support and friendship;
or by just getting together for a movie or birthday party. Currently,
Multifaith Works has 40 CareTeams in Seattle, serving 45 CarePartners,
including men, women, teenagers and children.
Before joining a CareTeam, prospective members participate in a one-day
training session. “You learn how AIDS is spread and not spread,” says
Tracy. “You can’t get HIV or AIDS by hugging someone, for example.” They’re
also brought up to date on statistics. In King County, for example, the
majority of people with HIV are no longer homosexual Caucasian men; the
disease is spreading faster among women, children and African Americans.
CarePartners are referred to Multifaith Works by case managers at AIDS
clinics or social service agencies. Many of them have no other contact
with Christianity, and the CareTeams are under instructions to tread
lightly. “It’s lifestyle evangelism,” says Tracy, who co-leads her CareTeam,
based at Seattle’s University Presbyterian Church. “You come alongside
someone and get to know them … and God always gives you an opportunity
to talk about him; I’ve seen it happen again and again.”
So what about the tension that has sometimes existed between Christians
and people with AIDS? “If it’s a population the church has been harsh
on, that’s even another reason to show Jesus’ love to these people,” says
SPU senior Traci Randolph, who serves on Tracy Cooper’s team along with
Carmen Musgrave ’02 and Noelle Smithhart ’02.
Adds Cooper: “Anything is scary if you don’t know anything about it.
But once you learn about AIDS and meet someone with the disease, it’s
not as scary. I think stereotypes have been broken down on both sides — not
only with Christians meeting people with HIV/AIDS, but with them meeting
Christians.”
“If you’re doing good clinical work, you’re going to
feel your patients’ suffering.”
TINA’S STORY
Thanks to medical advances, people with HIV can survive for years, checking
into hospitals only during acute phases of the illness. But most families
and patients still need help coping with pain, fatigue, fear and the
demands of treatment. Today, they often get such help from a specialist
in medical family therapy — and that specialist just might have been
trained in a new graduate program in Seattle Pacific University’s School
of Psychology, Family and Community.
Led by Instructor Tina Schermer Sellers, the SPU Medical Family Therapy
program trains students to counsel chronically ill patients, including
those with AIDS. Her students combine coursework with internships in
hospitals and clinics, helping patients cope with their illnesses by
building a support network of friends, family and church — an approach
shown to have significant health benefits.
Yet her students are as much changed by the work as the patients they
help. “If you’re doing good clinical work, you’re going to feel your
patients’ suffering,” Tina adds. “You’ll be sitting inside their world,
which is filled with pain and uncertainty. Students who have those experiences
grow in strength and courage and wisdom. They’re different on the other
side.”
That’s what he has experienced, says Robert Beilke, adjunct professor
at SPU and director of the Pediatric Psychology Service at Mary Bridge
Children’s Hospital in Tacoma. For the past six years, Robert has volunteered
with Northwest REACH, an annual four-day camp for children and their
families affected by HIV/AIDS. Sponsored by REACH Ministries, the camp
is staffed mostly by volunteers and is free for participants, who numbered
over 180 last year.
Families affected by HIV often feel isolated, says Robert, and the camp
helps them realize they’re not alone. “They don’t have to worry about
rejection or stigmatization, and their children — maybe for the first
time in their lives — don’t have to worry about being different from
other children,” he says. The camp, in fact, provides the support network
Tina says is vital. But volunteers also benefit. Although he first volunteered
just “to help out,” Robert says he returns because of the blessing he
receives from the children and families.
Tina and Robert have both discovered that working with people affected
by HIV/AIDS grounds them in something much deeper than medical research;
they say helping people is not only a therapist’s job but also a Christian’s
duty. “The church has a responsibility to reach out to people who are
suffering,” says Tina. “We need to suspend our judgments about what created
that suffering, because that’s not what’s important.”
— BY MARTIN STILLION
— PHOTOS BY JERRY GAY
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