 |
| The frail frame of Elijah Chipeta lies helpless on a mat. Troy Lewis (center), an International Service Corps worker, and Samson Zulu, pastor of Bualeni Baptist Church, comfort him with prayer. In two days Chipeta will die. |
By Shawn Hendricks
Photos by Warren F. Johnson
For a moment, Troy Lewis won't look anyone in the eye. He does not want them to see him cry.
With a tall frame, black dress pants, his shirt buttoned all the way to the top and a deep voice reminiscent of James Earl Jones, Lewis' polished, proud look becomes nothing more than a facade as tears slip down the side of his face. A 13-year-old girl named Milita, who is infected with the HIV virus, cracks the code to his emotions.
Lewis, an International Service Corps worker for the International Mission Board, visits the young girl in a compound in Lusaka, Zambia. Lewis moved here last year as an HIV/AIDS program developer with his wife, Tracey, and their two young sons.
On this day, Milita-in the last stages of the disease-isn't well. She sits on a mat with her grandmother in the shade, occasionally covering her mouth as she coughs.
The right side of her jaw is swollen, and her cough sounds painful. Empty pill packets lie in the dirt near her feet. Discarded and trampled, they look as if they have been there for days, maybe weeks.
"It's very difficult to be composed as I look at this girl," Lewis says while wiping away tears. "I think about all she is going to miss out on."
Both of Milita's parents died from AIDS, and there are no other relatives for her to turn to for help. Only her grandmother remains, and she is no help.
She suffers from heart problems. Milita is her primary caregiver. It won't be long before she will be unable to care for her grandmother.
"Seeing children like this is really what drives me," Lewis says. "It's what energizes me and pushes me to do more, to pray more and to seek the Lord more."
Lewis puts his arms around the girl's shoulders while standing quietly behind her. Before leaving, he puts his hands together with his fingers pointed toward the sky, to show Milita that he will be praying for her.
On that same day in the same compound, Lewis enters a one-room house where Elijah Chipeta, 24, lies flat on his back, waiting for death.
He can't eat. He can't sleep. He can't move without feeling pain. The AIDS virus runs deep in his blood, just below his leathery, dark skin that wraps tight around his bony frame.
Only Chipeta's eyes show signs of life. He is lying motionless on a flimsy mattress, covered with a thin blanket. He focuses all his attention on Lewis.
"When I go into a home and I look at the situation, I wonder: 'What would Jesus do?'" Lewis later shares.
"I pray that God would give them physical relief. I tell them that Christ relates to pain. He knows about suffering. He knows about pain. He knows about rejection.
"He is someone they can identify with."
Lewis communicates through Samson Zulu, a Baptist pastor in the compound. Both men kneel next to Chipeta as Lewis holds the dying man's hand and prays with him. Before the men leave, Chipeta confirms his faith in Jesus Christ.
 |
| Troy Lewis prays that others will follow God's call to places like Zambia, where people hunger for hope and love. He says without the prayers of Southern Baptists and the support of the Lottie Moon Chirstmas Offering, his job would be possible. |
In two days, Chipeta will die.
The next day, Lewis is quiet as he cruises down a winding road in his mission vehicle, far outside the borders of Lusaka.
The vehicle shakes violently at times from hitting potholes scattered along the road that stretches into the horizon. Lewis works to navigate around craters that tend to pop up when he least expects.
He glances at children walking along the road. There are no family or older adults in sight guiding them. He recalls what it was like growing up poor without a father in Cleveland, Ohio.
"I remember missing a lot of school because I was sick," he says. "When I see other people hurting, sick and struggling, I do have a passion for them."
He wonders how he can reach so many, with so little time.
"You look at the number of these people," he says, "and reaching them seems an insurmountable task.
"We don't have enough missionaries here to reach them. There's just an incredible need. HIV/AIDS is taking more lives than were taken during the Holocaust of World War II."
After several hours, he joins journeyman Carrie Eargle at a Baptist church in Chipata. There, they will hold an HIV/AIDS education seminar the following day.
While leading the seminar, Eargle and Lewis discuss what the initials "HIV" and "AIDS" stand for-and show how the disease spreads by using two cups and water.
Eargle sometimes wonders if her work is worth the effort.
"Many Africans believe that people get sick because of an evil spirit or that someone has put a curse on them," she says. "They don't talk about it, thinking it will go away, but that doesn't work."
Most Zambians have little if any knowledge of what actually causes the disease. They live in a culture where sexual promiscuity runs rampant.
By working with pastors and political leaders, Lewis hopes he can help fight this ongoing epidemic that kills more than 6,000 sub-Saharan Africans every day.
"We as Christians talk about the need to start churches," says Lewis, "but if we don't do something about HIV/AIDS, we're not going to have anyone to go to the churches we start.
"[Baptists] have been behind on this response," he continues. "We've had quite a bit of emphasis on doctrine, biblical teaching and preaching, but there has been a lot of denial about the severity of this issue."
One of the men Lewis works with is Misheck Zulu, executive secretary of the Baptist Fellowship of Zambia.
"Right now I know that there is no Zambian family that has not been affected," Zulu says.
There was a time when Christians weren't directly affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis, but that is no longer true. Believers are no safer from contracting the disease than non-Christians.
Zulu agrees with Lewis. Baptists in Zambia have been slow in responding to the epidemic. It was not until last year that the fellowship decided to make HIV/AIDS an ongoing focus.
"That's the tragedy," he says. "We have lost so much time; we have given up so much ground. But yet, it is not beyond where we cannot move back into this and be relevant to our society."
Lewis rolls through the gates of the Baptist Mission in Lusaka, where he and his family live. His two young boys peer out a window as he pulls in.
"He's home, he's home," they shout.
Lewis walks through the front door of his home to his boys' greetings. Piles of papers stack up on the desk in his home office. Toy soldiers lie scattered about the living room floor, and the movie Remember the Titans plays on the television.
It is nice to be home.
The next morning, Lewis lets his guard down again. Tears roll once again down the side of his face while he discusses the recent death of Chipeta, his feelings for children like Milita and other victims he has yet to meet. It is those who are suffering and will never hear about Christ that weigh the most on his heart.
"I hurt for all those people who we haven't reached, the ones who we haven't touched with the love of Christ.
"God wants to relieve their suffering. That's the part I hurt for." The writer and photographer may be reached at commission@imb.org.
|
