My friend Rosa is one of the numbers. She’s one of the 36.7 million people living with HIV. She lives in Colombia and is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Colombia.
Rosa isn’t just a number or statistic. She is a wife, a mother, a daughter, and an active member of her church. She is a fellow member of the body of Christ. She has been HIV-positive since she was a little girl.
The ELCA strategy on HIV and AIDS affirms the claim made and shared by the Lutheran World Federation: The body of Christ has AIDS. Paul wrote about the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12, describing it as interconnected and interdependent. In verse 26 he wrote: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
This message was adapted from “More Than a Number” written by Andrea DeGroot-Nesdahl that first appeared in the December 2010 issue of Lutheran Woman Today Gather. Today we observe World Aids Day. Pray for those who have died of the disease or continue to live with it.
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