PAGE THREE
Home -  Page One - Page Two - Page Three - Page Four - Page Five - Page Six

FEBRUARY 2005 PRAYER FOCUS

December 1^st was World AIDS day. On any day alone at least 14,000 new HIV infections will occur. More than 95% of these will be in developing countries, 1600 in children under 15 years old and over half in adults under 25. There will have been over 5.3 million new infections since World AIDS Day last year. Deaths due to HIV/AIDS will have been over 3 million in the past year and over 500,000 of those will have been deaths of children. Women are often affected at an earlier age than men as their first sexual encounter is usually non-consensual and with a man 5 to 15 years older who is already infected.

            Over half the Moravians in the world live in one of the four Provinces in Tanzania, a country deeply affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and so our church there is particularly hard hit. Outreach work on the borders of Tanzania goes into countries that also have a significant problem. The Moravian Church organizes training sessions in AIDS awareness for pastors and their wives as well as providing literature. There is also a program to care for AIDS orphans. At the hospital in Sikonge, the American Province supplies testing kits to help prevent mother to child transmission and they also supply a drug to be given in labor and to the new baby to prevent the spread of AIDS. If people do not know they have the disease, they cannot be helped so every month the British Province also sends testing kits. In Sikonge in the three months from September to November 2003, 1364 people were counseled regarding AIDS and 1323 were tested. 123 positive cases were found in that period.

            As HIV/AIDS is affecting young adults, many children are left as orphans. Often they are left in the care of grandmothers. There are many examples, all over Africa, of churches being involved in the care of AIDS patients. Older women are doing this work as well as looking after AIDS orphans. UNICEF reported recently that by 2010 there will be 20 millions AIDS orphans in Africa.

HIV/AIDS, of course, is not simply an African problem. It is worldwide. Western Europe has over 600,000 infected people, 50,000 of them in Britain, Eastern Europe and Central Asia have between 1.2 and 1.8 million cases, often related to drug injecting, while S.E. Asia has between 4 and 8 million people infected. UNAIDS says that these areas have the fastest growing epidemics worldwide.

It is said that the problem can be overcome. So stop and pause and PRAY for all individuals and communities affected by the disease; for all those treating patients with it; for all those striving to put across the messages about how infection can be prevented.        (Dr. Claire Summers – Edited by JHG)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(continued from p. 2)   in 1861 where it was the leading  female college in Jamaica before its principals decided to begin  accepting make students. Lady Ivy Cooke, wife of Governor General Sir Howard Cook is one of the best known past students of Bethlehem Moravian College.

The Moravian Church is also credited for establishing a training college for men in 1840. But after 50 years of existence it went under, reportedly because of lack of funds. The Moravians are said to be responsible for the introduction of the Irish potato in Jamaica in 1890. It was first introduced by Rev. George Lopp at Bethany, North Manchester.

The Jamaica Agricultural Society which was established in 1895, benefited significantly in the early years from the involvement of the Moravian Church, especially at Bethany, Mizpah and Nazareth in Manchester and Springfield in St. Elizabeth.

They were the first to establish public water supply in St. Elizabeth and Manchester by erecting tanks. The establishment of the water tanks was fueled by the need for water in the parishes due to low rainfalls. The government has now established parish tanks, tanks that were established by the Moravian Church.

Following the abolishment of slavery, it was the Moravians who established settlements for ex-slaves in Nazareth, Manchester, Beeston Spring and Beaufort near Darliston in Westmoreland.

Attorney-at-law Lowel Morgan, chairman of Bethlehem Moravian College and the man responsible for the development of the church, says the Moravian Church has thousands of acres of land in Manchester, St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland. 

The church is moving towards entering into a joint venture with the National Housing Trust to develop the lands for housing solutions. “We do not have the resources to develop all of these lands, and so we believe fundamentally in joint ventures. And so, we are exploring the possibility of entering into a joint venture arrangement with the NHT, for example, or with other developers. Our input into the joint venture would be the land and they would bring other assets such as expertise to it,” Morgan discloses.