Sharon Pumpelly goes to work every day knowing that 500 people
in her country will die of AIDS before the sun sets.
It is a race against the clock that Christian workers across
Africa are fighting. The AIDS epidemic already has claimed 13 million Africans.
Still, it is one that can be stopped.
Sharon Pumpelly goes to work every day knowing that 500 people
in her country will die of AIDS before the sun sets.
It is a race against the clock that Christian workers across
Africa are fighting. The AIDS epidemic already has claimed 13 million Africans.
Still, it is one that can be stopped.
Southern Baptist missionaries and their African partners are
seeking that end. They do not want multitudes of Africans to die before hearing
of Gods love and forgiveness.
“I keep saying one generation could end AIDS – one
generation of young people following Gods ways,” says Pumpelly, a
Southern Baptist missions worker in Kenya. “Either Im ignorant enough
or naive enough or have faith enough to believe thats how youth should
be challenged. … They are the hope, and they can make that kind of choice.”
That hope prompted Pumpelly and a student ministry team in
Uganda, in 1993 to create a “True Love Waits” program that urges African
youth to pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. By that time, AIDS
already was sweeping through the African continent, claiming thousands of victims.
“Nobody was giving information to young people to tell
them premarital sex was something to be avoided, and that saying no is not bad,”
says Cecilia Kabanda, who works with the Baptist Student Center in Uganda.
In 1994, Pumpelly shared the True Love Waits philosophy and
program with Janet Museveni, the First Lady of Uganda. Museveni eagerly promoted
the teams efforts.
“I just think God wanted to make his way known, and he
was just putting all the parts together,” Pumpelly says.
Soon, requests were pouring in for True Love Waits presentations.
School leaders wanted students to hear the message about abstinence. Church
leaders promoted the program among young people. Students shared the philosophy
with friends.
One young person told Pumpelly that he and his brother heard
her presentation, then gathered the neighborhood kids together and taught them
the True Love Waits philosophy.
“(He) said, Thank you for teaching us. You have
given us hope,” she recounts. “It just caught on.”
Christian leaders often take the True Love Waits message into
schools. “I watch youth share their dreams, then actively participate in
seeing how sexual behavior can kill dreams, then hear Gods Word and be
challenged to make a drastic commitment,” Pumpelly says.
It all seems to be having an effect.
One study found a growing number of Ugandan young people are
choosing abstinence before marriage. Medical surveys also show the rate of new
AIDS infections is declining.
But the effects are not reflected in statistics as much as
in the lives of individuals who pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage,
says Prince Ngongo Bahati, adviser for Agape, a Christian club at the United
States International University in Nairobi, Kenya.
Sexual promiscuity is rampant among the students who come from
all over the world to study at the college, he says.
“(But) Weve seen God work through True Love Waits,”
Bahati notes. “Ive talked to so many people, and Ive seen them
make commitments and look to the (True Love Waits pledge) cards when they are
tempted. I have seen people change their lives and live sexually pure lives
before God.”
When Irene Lwantale was married, she and her husband exchanged
the True Love Waits pledge cards as part of the ceremony. “Since we had
made a commitment to wait until our wedding day (before having sex), and we
had fulfilled that commitment, it was time to start a new life,” she says.
Those who work with True Love Waits emphasize that it is still
a battle to teach abstinence in a culture that promotes sexual promiscuity.
“The culture teaches the girls to be dependent on men,” says Andrew
Mwenge, pastor at Kampala Baptist Church in Uganda. “Girls give sexual
favors to be taken care of. We have to teach the girls how to take care of themselves
and about their own value.”
For guys, sexuality is something to be flaunted.
“At this age a gentleman thinks having sex is a way of
showing they are real men,” Bahati acknowledges.
Cultural myths and sexual practices complicate matters as well.
For instance, many believe if someone infected with AIDS has sex with a virgin,
then the disease will disappear, Pumpelly says. And in a few tribal areas, it
even is polite for men to share or loan out their wives, she notes.
But those who have seen True Love Waits work and change lives
say they are not discouraged. “You just teach the truth and the Holy Spirit
takes over,” Pumpelly says. “We cannot be lax in calling people to
the highest and the best.
“If nobody teaches them or challenges them, then how can they rise to
Gods best and Gods blessing for them? God blesses the nation whose
people follow his ways.” (BP)