Visiting someone who is dying with AIDS
by Konstanse Raen

In Rwanda people with HIV/AIDS have set up a lot of associations. One of the things the associations do is to visit people who are sick or dying with AIDS and they do a very, very good job. They say, “We hope that others will help us when we need it.” And some of them say, “We cannot die because we are so important in helping others.” So this is also the way they themselves stay alive.

I have gone many times with my friends from Rwanda’s various HIV/AIDS associations to visit other people with AIDS who are dying. For people who have not experienced AIDS among their relatives it is like being in a family where someone has got cancer: the whole family changes, their way of looking at life changes, their way of using money changes and the way they treat each other changes.

I have been very touched and when I go with these people: I don’t speak, I just listen, because they have experienced so much. I am always surprised how they can find hope because, for example, if people in Norway faced such difficulties, many would give up. But very few give up; those HIV/AIDS associations are very important for the hope they bring.

Infected

I speak at seminars but when we go visiting people who are sick, those who are infected can share in another way because they are in the same situation; so they can take the Word of God and they can put it across in a better way.

I go with them to be supportive. We pray, and because I go with them and I am a friend of the association, I don’t feel intrusive; I just want to show my concern.

Normally, they receive it very positively. I also leave some money for them, because, as a Westerner, I can always leave something. Even a little means children will have food that day.

I go away with a very heavy heart but at the same time I see how Christian love functions because I am with a group which will continue to visit them.

I may just visit once or twice but there are people following up, and because I have helped organise this I don’t feel guilty because I have done what I could.” (WR 390/31 - 02.05)