On Bended Knees for a Healing
The National Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS was held nationwide from March 4 to 10. Following is a sample of activities that took place in religious communities around the country.
Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
The Balm in Gilead led a discussion titled "In Dialogue: Faith Leaders and Persons Living With HIV" at Trinity United Church in Chicago, the Loudermilk Center in Atlanta and Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C. The sessions, moderated by Marsha Martin, D.S.W. (pdf), director of the Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention Services, gave PLWHA and clergy the opportunity to discuss Black-church involvement in increasing HIV awareness.
Also in Chicago, the women's department of the Life Center Church of God in Christ devoted its Saturday prayer breakfast to the healing of AIDS. Members came together for a gospel message pertinent to the AIDS crisis. "We petitioned the Creator to find a cure in our lifetime," said Juanetta Frazier, assistant pastor and overseer of the women's ministries. Passages were read from Geneva E. Bell's My Rose: An African American Mother's Story of AIDS, which chronicles how church folk shunned and ostracized the author's son after he was diagnosed with HIV. Frazier says that they didn't want to be like those church members. "We understand fear and turn the light on AIDS. We will continue to do what we can do," she said.
Los Angeles
L.A.-area ministers gathered at Crenshaw Christian Center for a 12-hour prayer vigil against the spread of HIV/AIDS. They also held the annual National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day observance after Sunday church services, where keynote speaker Cynthia Davis, an assistant professor at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, spoke about issues surrounding HIV.
Oakland, Calif.
Allen Temple Baptist Church collaborated with other Bay Area congregations to participate in a variety of worship and educational programs. "It's important for communities to come together to collaborate around the National Week for the Healing of AIDS and maybe cease doing stuff individually. Maybe more collaboratively would be a better way to move," said Gloria Crowell, chair of Allen Temple's AIDS ministry. Allen Temple put together a list of daily prayers and a communitywide events calendar. Although the week officially ended on Saturday, March 10, Allen Temple had guest speaker Bishop Keith L. Clark of Word Assembly Baptist Church close out the activities with a Sunday sermon on the ABCs of HIV.
Philadelphia
Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church teamed up with Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia for a testing event for women and girls. "The community is aware that Enon is a safe place for testing," said the Rev. Leroy Miles, associate pastor of pastoral care and counseling. African American women and teens were strongly encouraged to get tested. "Based on past experiences, we also knew to really emphasize first-time testers," Miles added. "As a church, we're clear. We're a very traditional Baptist church, but we understand the importance of education, reducing stigma and encouraging persons to be aware of their at-risk behavior. So in the Baptist Church--and I say that because I think it's so important--in the Baptist Church, we're talking about condoms," he says.
Austin, Texas
The Black Faith-Based Health Initiative partnered with 15 churches and several AIDS service organizations for a week of activities centered around the theme "Communication Between the Faith Community and the LGBT Community." Minister Joseph T. Collins, lead coordinator, said, "We chose this theme because the church has not stood up to its rightful place in terms of how we should treat people in the LGBT community. We chose to bring about communication."
On Sunday, March 4, 16 African American pastors presented messages of compassion, unconditional love and acceptance of people living with HIV. Afterward, testing took place at five of the churches, with 345 people being tested in three hours. The following Tuesday, 10 pastors and clergy gathered for A Pastor's Testing Day, during which all took an HIV test on camera to demonstrate how easy it is to test. "We wanted people to know if your pastor can do it, then you can do it," said Collins. At the celebration service hosted by Simpson United Methodist Church, keynote speaker Conscious, an HIV-positive lesbian, cautioned people about female-to-female transmission of HIV. Prayer vigils were held all week long.
Charlotte, N.C.
The Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) held its annual event at the Park Church. The Trinity Project--a division of RAIN--hosted a praise-and-worship service for those affected by HIV/AIDS and their families. Ministers were on hand to pray for those in need. Featured worship artist Tarsha' Hamilton told of her experiences with the disease--her father and mother died from AIDS before she was 18, and more recently it took her brother's life--through song and words. Her husband, singer-songwriter Anthony Hamilton, joined her onstage for an impromptu duet performance of "Silence Kills," a song from her first album. Members of RAIN's staff performed Many Faces, a dramatization of fictional stories of affected men, women and children.
April Eugene is a freelance writer and the author of the book A Day in the Life.