Mother starts foster home
for orphans, children with HIV/AIDS in South Africa
By Carla Wynn
CBF Communications
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Field personnel reflection from Ana Marie Houser
 Olivia's presence: Serving as CBF field personnel in Johannesburg has given us opportunity to see AIDS up close. Seeing AIDS is seeing people.
Olivia is a person I met while participating in a support group for HIV patients at the Johannesburg General Hospital. She helped run the support group by giving input from time to time, picking up and loving on babies while their mothers participated in the group, and making peanut butter and whole wheat sandwiches and tea or coffee for the patients participating in the group.
She was open and vocal about her HIV status. She encouraged everyone in the group to understand that being HIV-positive was not the end of living but the beginning of life in a different way. Olivia has lost a child and her partner to HIV.
Olivia will never know what she has gained by inspiring other people. She lives with the hope that before her time comes, there will have been found a cure for HIV and that she can have another baby. God is at work through Olivia.
The first time she encouraged me was when it was “introduction time” (a time I always dreaded because of not knowing exactly what to say) in the support group. At that time, I was pregnant and probably a little more emotional than normal because of it. But when it came my turn to say who I was and whatever else I had to contribute to the group, all I could come up with was how “nothing” my efforts to help would ever be. I wasn’t HIV-positive, so I couldn’t really relate, there were many cultural differences between me and almost all the support group, and no matter what I said, I still would not be able to say anything that would make a difference.
I also felt almost paralyzed by the sober reality of AIDS having taken over the lives of everyone in the group. But that paralysis was paralleled by my desire to be at least capable of doing something and therefore legitimize my presence in the group. As I realized this, I barely managed to utter my name before losing my composure and maybe the respect of everyone in the group. I don’t know.
But quickly there came Olivia, who sat on the arm of my chair. She put her hand on my back and said in her distinctive South African English, “You must be encouraged.” I tell you that was the hand of God on my back, encouraging me just to be. That’s really all Olivia said that day, but it has stuck with me ever since.
Olivia is busy living, encouraging as she does.
Resources
NOAH (Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for Humanity) is one of the ministries CBF supports
CARE (Community AIDS Response) is another partner for the Housers
AIDS in Africa report describes the impact of AIDS
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Here’s how Hannah Kitele’s St. Jane de Chantal foster home began:
“St. Jane originated in my mind as a result of the death of a 10-year-old refugee girl from Rwanda. She lost both parents to the Rwandan genocide. She was rescued and brought to South Africa by two Catholic missionaries only then to see them die – one to AIDS, the other to suicide.
Tragically, this refugee girl was also HIV-positive. She died alone on a table at a children’s home, where I then worked. Understaffed, we couldn’t give her the attention she so desperately needed and deserved. What humbled me so much was that despite all her life’s injustices, she endured them – not with resentment as you might imagine, but with hope, faith and big smile on her face.
From there on, I determined to give such children not just a roof over their heads, but a place of belonging. A haven of safety and security. A place that would forever be ‘home.’ This is St. Jane’s.” -Hannah Kitele
And at most recent count – two biological children, six foster children and 10 foster babies – are cared for by Hannah. She cares for the children until their mothers or parents can physically, emotionally and financially resume responsibility for care. Sometimes the parents are too young to care for the child; sometimes they are too sick themselves.
It’s a tough job – often children have AIDS-related medical complications – but an investment well worth it.
“You can be sitting one moment and the next you are rushing to the hospital,” Hannah said. “It’s very unpredictable. [But] the smiles, the hugs and the kisses…sleepless nights, yet unconditional love returned 10-fold.”
CBF Global Missions field personnel Ana Marie and Scott Houser are serving in South Africa and support Hannah’s work. They prepare a hot meal each week for the entire foster family, help transport children to doctor’s appointments, collect medicine for the children with AIDS, and connect Hannah with other sources of help.
“It’s not just about us helping Hannah, but more importantly, about Hannah helping us,” Scott said.
Helping them to realize that there is still hope. There is a lot of death happening because of HIV/AIDS, but there is hope.
“In the midst of all the dying there is a lot of living going on – courageous, bold living,” Ana Marie said. “It is magnificent the way many people here live their lives by sacrificially helping those who have no one to care for them. Surely it is God at work.”
Housers use memories to help families cope with HIV/AIDS related loss
Because of high rates of HIV/AIDS-related death in South Africa, many families and children are grieving their losses. Memory boxes are one of the Houser’s new projects designed to help people, particularly children, through the bereavement process by evoking thought and conversation about emotions. Through memory boxes, people are challenged to remember a loved one by chronicling his or her life. This remembrance helps the person cope with the loss or impending loss of a loved one.
Memory boxes are effective with children who have a parent or loved one with HIV/AIDS. They help build resilience in children, enabling them to deal with the life-threatening illness or death of a significant loved one. A memory box can be used before or after a parent or loved one’s death, and the process can involve the entire family.
The family creates and decorates a memory box and collects meaningful objects such as letters, photos and documents. Families even take new photos of each other and of sites that have been significant in the family’s history. Family members are invited to write stories about the deceased family member, or draw a family tree. Family members are also interviewed by a facilitator who writes down or records the history of the family and its members, including those who have died from HIV/AIDS.
“A memory box is a tool, a tool that not only enables intergenerational dialogue to occur in families but also to enable a remembering and preserving of family history,” said Scott Houser. “Most especially, it’s a tool that nurtures and enables resilience in children, whose primary caregivers have died or soon will be dead.”