Asian games centennial/ On ministers with HIV

Mikee Cojuangco Jaworski,  champion equestrienne, and husband Dodot Jaworski, basketball icon, are a perfect happy match. They made music together at last week’s BulongPulungan  as they  drummed up interest in the forthcoming Asian Games Centennial Festival (AGCEP) which will mark the 100th anniversary of the Far Eastern Championship Games  in Boracay Nov. 26 to 30.

The Asian Unity Games  as the AGCEP was first called, were first hosted by the Philippines 100 years ago. But it seems the Philippines is way behind in hosting games. And Dodot and Mikee told Bulong Bulungan last week their aim is  to make the 100th year celebration a historic one. Dodot is executive director of the festival, and Mikee, his assistant, are providing their service “pro bono” and, as Dodot emphasized, “for the love of country, and sports.”

The AGCEF festival will have the leaders of the General Assembly of the 204 member countries of the Association of National Olympics Committees (ANOC) and the General Assembly of the 45-member national Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). The couple added that the Festival marks the 100th year celebration of the birth of the Asia Games under the OCA-GA, and the first ANOC-GA under  an Asian sports leader, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah.

There will be no sports tournaments at the Boracay festival, but activities will include water games,  general assemblies and an expected extraordinary  musical concert directed by Ryan Cayabyab who will integrate  the musical traditions of  Asian countries.

Dodot and Mikee hope that the historic sports project to be attended by 1,400 delegates, and tourists,  will recreate once more the channels of unity and promote sports tourism as a vehicle to bring about better relationships among countries.

Dodot and Mikee hope that  investors will be attracted to support the event, which is figured to cost P120 million.

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In 1991, Rev. Canon D. Gideon B. Byanmugisha, a Ugandan priest and canon of St. Paul’s  Cathedral Namirembe and Holy Cross Cathedral, Lusaka, Zambia, learned six months after his wife died, leaving him with a baby, had HIV. It took him a while to submit himself for HIV testing. The result showed he was HIV positive. His counselor asked him a religious, spiritual and practical question: “Man of God, what are  you going to do?” Reverend Gideon was stigmatized by the counselor’s question. He decided to go public about his HIV status.         

His decision to go open was greeted with mixed responses in his church.“The prevailing understanding at the time in faith communities was that a person suffering from AIDS is a sinner.” The donors of  scholarship grant were concerned that he may not finish his studies for a doctoral degree in theology because AIDS was “fatal with no effective vaccine nor a cure.”

If he had not disclosed his HIV status, Gideon said he would have died of HIV “as  I suffered from spiritual crisis, from theological crisis and from social crisis.” Two persons, however, showed him unconditional love – a sister who said she loved him before and after he had contracted the HIV virus, and a bishop “who laid his hands on my  head to bless me. He told me there are others who continue to deny their HIV status. “Gideon, from now on you are my son.” Gideon stayed with him for seven years.

“Along with my  faith journey I was happy to have family members, community leaders and friends who held the same religious belief in the most loving, gracious and most compassionate and most merciful God who helped me to cope positively with HIV at a time when other leaders believed in a wrathful, judgmental and vengeful God who had sent HIV infections, illnesses and deaths as punishment for our sexual sins, promiscuity, adultery and other personal moral failures.” In 1995, when Gideon wanted to get married with someone who was HIV positive and widowed like him, many priests refused to wed them. But another bishop accepted, married them off.  He and his wife decided to have a baby, and, said Gideon, “thanks to advances in science and our knowledge of how HIV is  transmitted, we have been able to prevent HIV transmission to our two children.

Another person with a story to tell, Presbyterian minister Phumzile Mabizela,  was a single mother with one daughter when she was diagnosed with HIV in 1999. Her daughter, now 11, is HIV negative. Rev. Phumzile got married in  2001. In 2011, her husband died from a car accident. With her knowledge  and access to information and medical medication and medical insurance in South Africa, she decided she was going to “live positively to be the best strategy.” She had to deal with the side effects of  Antiretroviral drugs.

“As someone living with HIV, I refused to be called a victim. As an ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church I believe in a God of victory and that is why I am not a victim. To be called a victim is very disempowering. I am a victor, people living with HIV+ (PLHIV+) are agents of hope. We can live with the virus.”

Like Rev. Gideon, Rev. Phumzile, has no broken spirit because of her condition, but instead has been helping others accept their condition positively. “We have have the experience and we speak with authority as we live with the virus. We can change messages that generate fear to one that generates hope and one that creates an environment full of love, care, counseling and support for people living with HIV.”

A member of the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with and Personally Affected by HIV and AIDS (INERELA) , we promote the concept of “wounded Healers.” She is a member of the Circle of Concerned African women theologians,  â€œand we are developing a theology for and with the marginalized groups.” She has produced a book on church communities promoting AIDS  awareness.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Arica, has developed resources on HIV and AIDS, particularly  on theology and HIV. “We need to equip people living with HIV to live positively, to develop contextual theologies, to become advocates, to give information to our congregations and to make our churches HIV competent.”

The two  church ministers were guests  and speakers  at a forum organized  by UCCP-Cosmopolitan Church on the topic,   “Working Together Towards Ending Stigma, Shame, Denial, Discrimination, Inaction and Mis-action (SSDDIM). Another minister speaking at the forum  was Elijah Fung, center manager of St. John Cathedral HIV Education Center in Hongkong.

Angela Valdez Timtiman, UCCP-Cosmopolitan Church  member who leads an organization dealing with Filipino HIV “victors,”in New York,  also spoke at the forum.

An objective of the forum is to have people come out and reveal their status and become actively involved in HIV education, organizing networks, lobbying and advocacy and other creative ways to prevent HIV. The fast way to help the HIV-infected  is to make them  and their families face their fears.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines have organized programs to help people with HIV and AIDS.

The forum at Cosmopolitan Church was spearheaded by Rev. Jose Andes Sotto, senior pastor,  Pastor Alvaro O. Senturias Jr., and Dr. Erlinda Senturias.

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