It’s tough to break through the noise. People have got places to go. They’re lost in thought as they walk, talking on the phone, worrying about their own lives.
That’s why it was so cool to see a moment in time where people could pause and reflect, even briefly, about the enormous human cost of a pandemic.
It’s tough to miss what amounts to a graveyard on a college campus.
Seattle Pacific University students helped me place 1,000 white crosses with red ribbons on their campus, for World AIDS Day 2009. 1,000 represents the number of people who die from AIDS worldwide in a four hour period.
Big numbers make my eyes glaze over. That’s why the crosses are so important.
Every cross represents a name. A life. A mom, dad, son or daughter. Someone with a smile, with hopes for the future, with interests and passions.
I was able to spend a day with children orphaned by AIDS in Kenya last year with Christian humanitarian organization World Concern. I was amazed at the way they played and horsed around and kicked around a soccer ball. I took They are children – and they find themselves with nobody to watch out for them.
It’s awesome what World Concern is doing to help people with AIDS, and those left behind, in Haiti, Zambia and Kenya. Such critical needs, of food, water, income, education.
It is the calling of Jesus to care for widows and orphans, and this is exactly what AIDS has caused: 15 million orphaned boys and girls. This is essential work. As one person said about this grassroots project to raise awareness for AIDS, “This looks like Christ.”
For more information and to see how you can protect one orphaned child: www.worldconcern.org/godparent
