MISSION ISSUES
Vol. XV
No. 11
December 2003
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Finding Self-Respect
“No one should have to die alone; nor should little children have to deal with burying their parents in the backyard,” says Sister Christine Martin, an Australian missionary who has been working with AIDS orphans in South Africa.
Sr. Christine joined her order not because she desired to be a missionary but because she was attracted by the example of her teachers, all Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, at the Catholic school where she was a student.
After teaching for ten years in Australia, she was sent to set up a secondary school in Tzaneen diocese in South Africa. This diocese covers the country’s poorest rural area, on the border with Zimbabwe.
Precious experience
In 1993 she returned to Australia and worked for the Children’s Services of Catholic Welfare Australia. This experience with children in problematic situation became precious for Tzaneen Diocese after she returned in the year 2000.
Since then she has been working with three other sisters of her order serving HIV and AIDS patients. Sr. Christine concentrates on the care of the orphans and vulnerable children, sharing their daily struggle in the midst of death, disease, poverty, injustice and people’s dangerous misconceptions about AIDS.
The situation is grimmer than ever as there are more and more AIDS deaths all the time, and more and more children must attend the funerals of their parents or other close family members.
One of the first consequences is the dramatic increase in families with no parents where the older brother or sister acts as a parent to their younger siblings. The four nuns have identified 634 of such child-headed households in their area. “They are brave little children,” says Sr. Christine, “used to hardships, and they have tremendous resilience”.
Most vulnerable
When working with children in her home country, Sr. Christine wrote some books for them to help them process feelings of trauma and grief. With the necessary adaptations, these books turned out to be extremely helpful for the support groups she set up to help the AIDS orphans.
However she admits, “We have to feed the children first; they can’t process their feelings of grief if they are starving. The situation is so grim that we have to help the children only if they have shown some effort to help themselves, for example cutting firewood and planting the seeds provided by the government.”
Young girls are the most vulnerable. Sr. Christine tells of an orphaned 15-year-old girl raped when she was 10, who came to tell her about her eight-year-old sister being interfered with as well. Both were victims of the myth some men believe that to get rid of the AIDS infection they need to find a virgin child whose pure body will take their sickness away. Sr. Christine’s response was to set up a hostel for little girls that are at high risk.
The sisters have also established the Holy Family Center, to provide care for children and new mothers who are dying of AIDS. The reason for this Center is that a lack of medicines and supplies in hospitals and clinics across the region means that patients who are dying are sent home once it is clear that nothing more can be done for them.
Forming the young
In the face of the scourge of AIDS, the formation of the younger generations is extremely urgent. Sr. Christine tells of a family who, having lost their mother and toddler sister to AIDS, then lost their father to AIDS as well. Before he died, he tried to educate his remaining children about the disease. He kept telling them about how AIDS spreads and how they have to be strong and realise that behavior change is the only way to prevent the disease taking more of their family. He impressed on them that they had to show great respect for their own person and the body of others.
Sr. Christine wonders if the children, aged thirteen, ten, seven and five, were too young to understand. But this is where the challenge lies. “Here the Church has a role to continue the work with schools and families to teach about fidelity within marriage,” says the sister. “Such a pandemic cannot be turned around by companies all vying for a place in the market to sell the condoms they produce. Health facilities cannot deal with the pandemic, nor can we make up the difference. Morality has to become a value that is seen as sacred and lifesaving as well as noble and healthy to human wellbeing.”
Looking ahead, Sr. Christine hopes that the small Christian communities from the local villages will help to set up centers where sick children can be cared for, orphans can go for a meal and a health check, and simple life skills such as home maintenance and gardening can be taught.
With the help they have received from the Church, the AIDS orphans of Tzaneen diocese can now see a possible future after all the grief they have experienced. “Still - concludes Sr. Christine - there are thousands of children, orphaned and vulnerable, that we haven’t reached yet - and that disturbs me.” And it should disturbs us as well.<WM
Copyright©2003 World Mission Magazine