World AIDS Day - taking action

Please join World Relief in commemorating World AIDS Day today, December 1st.

For more information about what World Relief is doing around the world to join in the fight against HIV/AIDS, please check out the links below:

Winning the battle against AIDS in Cambodia: http://community.wr.org/Page.aspx?pid=1306

HIV/AIDS in Livingstonia: http://community.wr.org/Page.aspx?pid=1313

Abstinence pledges soar in the face of AIDS: http://community.wr.org/Page.aspx?pid=1312

And here are two simple ways for any of us to take action:

The Alive Campaign - Now is the Time to Act
Add your name to Integral's message to the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. World Relief is asking all of its staff to participate. For more information and to sign, click here.

And pray!! God hears, especially on behalf of the poor and suffering. Please join me today in taking a few minutes to pray for those who are suffering from HIV/AIDS. It's a disease that has many faces.

I have a dear friend in California, Austin, who is an actor and humanitarian worker and aspiring nurse, and who is HIV+. He has the privilege of living in the USA and embracing life and living it to its fullest, and he lives his life with a strong faith in a loving God, and he's an inspiration to us all! But I know it's not always easy for him.

Then I think of the widow Christine that I met here in Rwanda, the one who was dying of AIDS and was facing incredible hardship, but whose face shone in the darkness of her little mud hut when she talked about the goodness of her Jesus.

Then, there are thousands of children every day, innocent children, who have either been born with HIV or who will lose a parent to the disease. Children. How can they understand that it's not their fault, that they're not forgotten, that there is still a God who loves them very much??

Thank you for your prayers for each and everyone, and that God would dwell near to each hurting heart.