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Holding hands across the globe: American and African churches work together to address AIDS and more
By Manda Gibson
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| Parkway Church in Victoria, Texas, is partnering with Shalom Assembly in Nnewi, Nigeria, to address some of the world’s biggest problems, like spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic diseases, and a lack of education. On a recent trip to Nigeria, Parkway Director of Missions Julie Sterne (second from left) and a team of Parkway Church volunteers spent time with Shalom Assembly Pastor David Anichukwu (fourth from right) and his family. |
On a Saturday afternoon in Nnewi, Nigeria, people are gathered inside a local church. Each person holds an index card – either white or red. They walk around, signing each other’s cards. Then they stop, and everyone returns to their seats.
An American woman asks everyone holding a red card to stand up and to read the names of people who have signed their cards. Then she tells the group that everyone with a red card is HIV+ – and that every person who has signed their cards is potentially HIV+ now too.
The exercise was part of an afternoon of HIV/AIDS training that members of Parkway Church in Victoria, Texas, did for Shalom Assembly, a Nigerian church they’re partnering with. The activity was designed to show how quickly HIV can spread, and how it’s difficult to know who carries the virus and who doesn’t.
The relationship between Parkway Church and Shalom Assembly began several years ago, when David Anichukwu, pastor of Shalom Assembly, was visiting Texas and met Scott Weatherford, who was Parkway’s pastor at the time.
Over the next few years Anichukwu visited Parkway several times and went with Parkway leaders to the Purpose Driven Church conference and the Global Summit on AIDS and the Church at Saddleback. He even traveled to Asia with two Parkway pastors to teach the Purpose Driven Church conference materials.
When Julie Sterne, director of missions at Parkway Church, first mentioned AIDS to Anichukwu, he said it wasn’t a problem in his community.
“He was blinded to it, but investigated and found it was there,” Sterne said.
Once he realized AIDS was present in his city, he knew his church couldn’t ignore it. During the AIDS Summit, Anichukwu often would get tears in his eyes as he learned new ways to respond to HIV/AIDS, Sterne said. He also was grateful for the books and videos in the resource tent, because HIV/AIDS ministry resources are difficult to come by in Nigeria.
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| More than 200 people attended an HIV/AIDS Conference offered by Parkway Church and Shalom Assembly. In addition to learning the basic facts of HIV/AIDS, attenders learned how Christians can address HIV/AIDS and minister to those living with HIV. |
HIV/AIDS training
Eventually Parkway Church and Shalom Assembly decided to partner together in P.E.A.C.E., a plan for churches to address the world’s biggest physical and spiritual problems. In May 2007 a team from Parkway Church visited Shalom Assembly. The churches worked together to find ways to address major problems, including HIV/AIDS, in Nnewi.
Around 200 people turned out for the churches’ HIV/AIDS training, including Nnewi’s minister of health, along with a doctor who’s an AIDS specialist at Nnewi’s most renowned hospital for women and children.
They used the C.H.U.R.C.H. acrostic and other Saddleback HIV/AIDS resources to help people understand how they could respond to AIDS.
Sexual purity was a focus of the talk, and they candidly answered audience questions like, “Can you get AIDS from kissing?”
Ultimately, the Parkway team and Shalom Assembly leaders encouraged and equipped Christians to minister to people with HIV/AIDS.
“God calls us to minister,” Sterne said. “They don’t have to fear contracting the disease by loving people.”
Sterne and the other leaders also emphasized the responsibility of churches to respond practically to HIV/AIDS, by doing things like feeding people and caring for widows and orphans. They also provided materials for small groups and students to use.
Commissioned to serve
On the Sunday that Sterne’s team was in Nigeria, Anichukwu held a special service, commissioning his congregation to go out and reach people who aren’t Christians. Though the Christians themselves are poor and face their own physical and spiritual giants, they are called as the Church to reach out, Anichukwu said.
He also emphasized that the Parkway team was made up mostly of ordinary people, not pastors.
“We told them God can use you no matter who you are and what you are doing,” Sterne said.
Anichukwu is planning to attend the 2007 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church with his adult children.
At the same time, Russell Dear, a businessman from Parkway Church who went to Nigeria, is helping people from Shalom Assembly start a micro-enterprise making laundry soap. He provided them with some seed money and startup supplies, and is helping as they make their plans.
Sterne is convinced that the partnership between Parkway Church and Shalom Assembly will produce much spiritual fruit.
“I told the people when we first arrived [in Nigeria]: ‘We come not to stand above you and teach you; we come to hold hands across the globe,’” she said. “When we left Nigeria, I felt like I was leaving a family.”
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