- Over 42 million people are living with AIDS. 74% of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa.*
- There are 14,000 new infections, worldwide, every day.*
- 17% of Rwanda’s children are orphans, including many from HIV/AIDS.
Three and a half years ago, statistics like these, along with a renewed passion for missions led the people of Mars Hill to step up to a very tough challenge. We decided to act upon our convictions as a church by partnering with World Relief in a five-year commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS and the poverty that surrounds it.
The goal? To implement a holistic, church-based response to HIV/AIDS - one that would speak out against stigmatizing the affected, mobilize churches to care for the sick and dying, and train the next generation to fight this vast epidemic. And so began our partnership in a daily struggle that continues halfway around the world.
The early steps.
We began our initiative by investing directly in an HIV/AIDS technical unit and the Rwanda HIV/AIDS team. In addition to supporting the team’s key leaders, Mars Hill also contributed to the development of educational materials, provided technical equipment and personnel for the HIV/AIDS unit, and covered many other day-to-day operating costs.
As the technical unit and its programs grew, our support expanded to include HIV/AIDS support staff in Nairobi, Kigali and Baltimore. We may not have realized it at the time, but these efforts were helping to build the foundation for what would soon become a huge endeavor.
Power in numbers.
By the end of our first 18 months of partnership, World Relief’s International AIDS Team won a five-year, $9.67 million grant from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to be applied in Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique and Haiti. On top of that, Rwanda and Mozambique received single-country grants from PEPFAR, totaling $2.55 million.
Today, in Rwanda and Kenya alone:
- 12,180 teachers, pastors and peer educators have been mobilized and equipped
- 4,254 church, school and community outreach and education programs have been developed
- 328,265 youth and 83,235 influencers have been educated on risk of HIV/AIDS.
What's more, an estimated 398,000 people have been exposed to HIV/AIDS prevention messages through mass- and folk-media programs.
Others are getting involved, too.
Over the past four years, World Relief's Church Partners have grown from one to 29 and have spread from the Africa Great Lakes region to Southern Africa, Southeast and East Asia and even the Caribbean. Today, the Africa Great Lakes region boasts the strongest model of partnership, with eight church partners giving an expected $840,000 in the 2007 fiscal year alone.
Looking ahead.
The groundwork has been laid. Momentum is building. Now is the time to push even further by strengthening existing programs and initiating new ones. Plans are already well underway to expand programs into the war-torn nations of Burundi and Congo. And that's just a small portion of a much bigger picture.
As you can see there has been great progress. In fact, the people of Mars Hill have contributed $1,000,000 to date. But the task is by no means complete. Only by pressing on as a unified front can we leverage our fullest potential as a church - and continue to make Christ known in this hurting world.
* www.until.org/statistics.shtml
See just some of the lives that have been changed by our, and your involvement.