NEWS FEATURE: AIDS’ youngest victims alter attitudes about disease

c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Lana Aumer used to think AIDS was a gay man’s disease. Then she met 3-year-old Shanita.”It never occurred to me that it’d be a child,”said Aumer, a Roman Catholic who volunteers for the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) in Charlotte, N.C., which encourages religious groups to help AIDS […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Lana Aumer used to think AIDS was a gay man’s disease.

Then she met 3-year-old Shanita.”It never occurred to me that it’d be a child,”said Aumer, a Roman Catholic who volunteers for the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) in Charlotte, N.C., which encourages religious groups to help AIDS patients.”That little child taught me more about life and caring and living and loving than anyone.” Shanita, said Aumer, would laugh even as her hair fell out. She smiled, hugged and kissed even though she could not eat. Most of all, Shanita loved. After Shanita’s death last year, Aumer reflected on the lessons learned from the girl, whose AIDS was passed on to her in the womb by her mother.”It opened my eyes,”Aumer said.”You cannot claim to be a person of faith and not reach out to those who are poor in body and poor in spirit.” AIDS’ youngest victims will be remembered during this year’s commemoration of World AIDS Day, which falls on Monday (Dec. 1). The effort is sponsored by the American Association for World Health (AAWH), a non-profit, private agency based in Washington, D.C.


This year’s theme is”Give Children Hope in a World with AIDS.” The focus on children comes as AAWH statistics show that 830,000 children around the world have the AIDS virus. During 1996, the disease killed 1,000 children each day worldwide.

Chip Heath, special projects coordinator for Episcopal Caring Response to AIDS, which is affiliated with the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., said children have changed the way traditional religious communities have come to regard AIDS, which they previously thought of as a disease that only afflicted those who engaged in what they regarded as immoral behavior _ drug use or gay sex.”Religious communities have always had a soft spot for children but not for adults with AIDS,”said Heath, whose organization seeks to educate pastors and communities about the disease.”Children have always been considered victims. They (religious groups) were not always there for adults.”They no longer look at the behavior. It’s (AIDS) affected everyone and is no longer viewed as a gay, white male disease or a black, IV-drug user disease. Churches have really opened up,”he said.

An example of this change is Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.”Churches with traditional attitudes have a mentality that is not open to ministry with AIDS,”said Mt. Carmel member Anthony Henderson.”We (at Mt. Carmel) have set up a committee on HIV/AIDS that has a focus of increasing volunteerism and lovingly and compassionately embracing people with AIDS.” However, Henderson said churches with older congregations still tend to be closed to the issue of AIDS _ whether it involves children or adults.

Calvary Temple Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., is another example of a conservative church that has embarked on an AIDS ministry.”We felt like this was a gay disease and people often called it the gay plague,”said the Rev. Eric Williams of Calvary Temple, which started an AIDS ministry about four years ago.”We speak negatively of gays and it turns them away from God. You get jokes about Adam and Steve and ignorant talking.” Williams said the only thing that gets people in his church talking about AIDS is when it hits women and children they know.”Since the numbers are exploding in that category, churches are changing their attitudes,”he said.

Sheryl Watkins, a spokeswoman for World Vision, an international Christian relief and development agency that has 34 AIDS outreach projects in 15 countries, agreed that church perceptions about AIDS have changed.”Religious communities used to think that AIDS was a damnation from God. But people are finding that they are much more likely to be touched by AIDS in their own congregations,”she said.

What Aumer, the 54-year-old AIDS worker in Charlotte, remembers most about her time with Shanita was the child’s faith.

Before she died, just before Christmas last year, Shanita asked RAIN volunteers to sing”Silent Night,”one of her favorite songs.”I asked her if she could see the angels and she shook her head yes,”said Aumer.”I told her, Shanita, there will be no more pain because there are angels.” Shanita died that evening.

On Aumer’s desk today is a photo of Shanita. It’s a reminder, she said, that faith communities must respond to people with AIDS, no matter who they are.”I believe the people with AIDS today are like those who were outcasts in old times. They are the lepers of today. But they just want somebody to be there,”said Aumer.


MJP END IRVIN

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