Letters from Overseas

February 2008

Go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.

Daniel 12:13

Gina worked at the PEDRA (Portuguese for "stone") centre in a poor barrio of our city of Quelimane, in her Church of the Nazarene. She was 25 years old. The pastor, Rev. Adisse, chose her for PEDRA as one of the most active women of the congregation and one of the best-educated; she had already completed Grade 11. In PEDRA she taught Bible studies, embroidery, music, nutrition, and lessons on AIDS.

Gina and her husband had one child, a year and a half old now. When Gina went to give birth, the hospital maternity staff tested them both for HIV. Both tested positive, and the hospital staff referred her to the Hospital Dia where people go for AIDS counselling and medication. But Gina didn't go. She didn't tell her husband or anyone about her HIV status. She kept it secret.

She kept on doing her valuable work with the girls in PEDRA, helping to keep them safe from AIDS, till earlier this month Gina fell sick. Lesions developed and spread inside of her mouth and throat. Because of the lesions she couldn't chew or swallow well. She lost weight and grew quite feeble. One day she collapsed on the street. Pastor Adisse called CCM, and the PEDRA truck took her back to hospital. But she signed herself out, went back home and took to her bed. It was only then that her husband finally learned that Gina and their child had AIDS.

Their child got sick. Her husband took the child to a neighbour to care for since Gina was no longer able.

Yesterday pastor Adisse was shocked by Gina's deterioration. He asked for the PEDRA truck to take her again to the hospital for intravenous feeding. The truck was out of town. Gina's husband decided to wait a day till the truck came back to take her to hospital. The next day, Pastor Adisse called Gina's colleagues at PEDRA to come quickly. A truck can only penetrate so far in those flooded nearly streetless barrios. Karen and Adelia had to leave the truck where the road stopped at a muddy flood-water lagoon, and wade a hundred metres through water a foot deep to reach the house.

Gina lived in a one-room stick-walled house. Inside are a plastic basin, a bed with a straw mat and no mattress, three chairs, a sack of corn, and a neatly swept mud floor. Gina lay on the mat on her back, her mouth open, wheezing in a kind of hoarse panic, gasping for breath. Her aunt was kneeling at the bedside with her 10-year-old sister. Pastor Adisse began to pray. He knew the signs; he had been to scores of bedsides like Gina's. Gina's sister ran to call the husband, who arrived just as Gina breathed for the last time. Karen and Adelia were with her when she died.

There are 60,000 HIV-positive people in our district, of a total population of about 300,000. Thirty-six percent of adults are HIV-positive, the highest rate in all of Mozambique. Thousands of times Gina's story has happened and will happen. Many people don't go for HIV testing, and many who do go and test positive don't go back for counselling and treatment. They're afraid of AIDS, afraid of the treatments, afraid the treatments won't work, afraid of being stigmatized, afraid of the reactions of neighbours, friends, family, loves, and spouses. If dedicated, educated people like Gina choose this way, people who have family support for the asking, imagine what trauma HIV must mean for those less well-equipped to face it.

Among women in Mozambique, the most common age for dying of AIDS is 25. Gina's age. Like Daniel, she has gone her way and is at rest. We pray that Gina will have her reward, for the goodness that she did at PEDRA in that last confused year of life, when she couldn't save herself from AIDS but fought to save others. Karen and Adelia had brought Gina's honorarium for January and February. Some of that money paid for her funeral.

In mission and service,

Karen and Bill Butt

Karen and Bill Butt are United Church of Canada Overseas Personnel serving with Conselho Cristao de Mocambique in Mozambique. The work of this ecumenical partner and the work of overseas personnel are made possible through your gifts to the Mission and Service Fund of The United Church of Canada.