"The highlight of my week was a story told to us by Captain Joe about his work in a village infected with HIV/AIDS. It’s a story worth re-telling.
"Captain Joe is a counselor instructor who travels around teaching and educating people for the government. He uses his earnings to pay for the building supplies for his corps in his region. Just the month before he had heard about an infected woman in a village who was being mis-treated, and went to investigate. His trip involved a six day walk after an eight hour trip by car and canoe. When he arrived in the village after dark, he discovered that the woman was being treated like a pariah. She was literally living with the pigs. She had been tied up in the pig sty, and was forced to live there all because it had been discovered that she had AIDS. No one would touch her.
"He promised that he would return in the morning after he had rested from his long journey. In the early morning hours, Joe rang the village bell and gathered the town elders together and then walked them all out to the woman. She was filthy and covered in her own feces.
"Joe picked her up, untied her, took off her clothes, gently bathed her, redressed her and prepared a pot of tea to drink all in the presence of the stunned town elders. After he gave her a sip of the drink, he then took her cup and finished it himself– using the opportunity to teach the people that they could only contact the disease through sexual contact – nothing else.
"He took her clothes, burned them and then escorted the woman back into the village. Captain Joe is a simple man – in his words he is just a “humble servant,” but that night as we sat in the dark on his porch he became a giant of a man – one I will long remember even if I never have the opportunity to see him again except in eternity, where I know his Savior has a cup of tea waiting for him."
"Captain Joe is a counselor instructor who travels around teaching and educating people for the government. He uses his earnings to pay for the building supplies for his corps in his region. Just the month before he had heard about an infected woman in a village who was being mis-treated, and went to investigate. His trip involved a six day walk after an eight hour trip by car and canoe. When he arrived in the village after dark, he discovered that the woman was being treated like a pariah. She was literally living with the pigs. She had been tied up in the pig sty, and was forced to live there all because it had been discovered that she had AIDS. No one would touch her.
"He promised that he would return in the morning after he had rested from his long journey. In the early morning hours, Joe rang the village bell and gathered the town elders together and then walked them all out to the woman. She was filthy and covered in her own feces.
"Joe picked her up, untied her, took off her clothes, gently bathed her, redressed her and prepared a pot of tea to drink all in the presence of the stunned town elders. After he gave her a sip of the drink, he then took her cup and finished it himself– using the opportunity to teach the people that they could only contact the disease through sexual contact – nothing else.
"He took her clothes, burned them and then escorted the woman back into the village. Captain Joe is a simple man – in his words he is just a “humble servant,” but that night as we sat in the dark on his porch he became a giant of a man – one I will long remember even if I never have the opportunity to see him again except in eternity, where I know his Savior has a cup of tea waiting for him."
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