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Neither words nor statistics
can adequately capture the human tragedy of children—lost,
ignored, abandoned, sick or grieving for deceased parents.
Sometimes they are stigmatized by society through their association
with HIV/AIDS, and always—plunged into economic crises and
insecurity by their parent(s) death. Children have to look
after children and struggle without services or an extended
support system in impoverished communities burdened by violence.
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The Sparrow Ministries Hospice
is an interdenominational Ministry of Help caring for “destitute
terminally ill” adults and children with HIV/AIDS. They provide
in-patient hospice accommodation, medical care, and psychological,
social and spiritual support to 15 adults and 30 children.
Their out-patient facility offers care to 45 adults and six
children, including hospital visits, medication, food pantry,
clothing, counseling and help with applications for disability
grants. The Sparrow Hospice provides home-based care reaching
up to 10 families a week. In addition, they provide home-based
care courses, as well as counseling courses, in order to mobilize
communities with effective HIV/AIDS knowledge.
The Hospice was founded in
the home of the Rev. Corine McClintock in 1992. When I visited
in October 2001, they were still in Rev. McClintock’s home,
a modest 4-bedroom house just outside of Johannesburg, South
Africa.
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The reality of AIDS is staring
them in the face. From the hopeless, helpless individuals
who stand outside their doors in the morning, to the children
with their brave smiles, longing to be held by anyone—the
hospice seems surrounded by the biggest tragedy in human existence.
Sometimes they get patients from Animal Welfare, who when
they go out looking for injured or neglected animals stumble
over a human being. Sometimes patients migrate to mine dumps
to be left alone or to die, as they do not see their way out
of despair and illness. At the time of my visit, there was
a tiny two-month old baby boy, born with AIDS and abandoned
in a trash dump whom the hospice had just taken in for care.
Regardless of this reality, they have refused to be stunned
into passivity by this silent killer. Their motto is and has
always been, “Get up and live.”
Sparrow Ministries is supported
entirely through charitable contributions. A doctor from a
local provincial hospital volunteers his services, a female
graduate student helps Rev. McClintock run the home and raise
donations, and three South African women work in shifts to
help with care, cooking and cleaning. There is no anti-HIV
therapy and only a few medicines available to help fight opportunistic
infections.
Lynette (a volunteer) talking
about her friend Juliet, a 10-year-old girl living with AIDS,
said that, “every night she falls asleep on my chest. Just
to get her more comfortable I move her around on her side
of the bed. When I finally doze off I feel her little hand
in mine. Two days ago she weighed 15 kg (33 pounds), today
it is 14 kg. Her skin is dry and white. I pretend not to see
and not to know the signs. A few hours later our midnight
run begins. A few nights ago we got up 16 times, forced by
a never ending stream of unrelenting diarrhea. Last week she
was admitted for two days and sent home. Another day, another
hospital. This time they did not even keep her, just sent
her home with the terminally ill tag. In the early hours of
the morning I cry silently, hating the world, detesting the
rift between rich and poor. If only I could get money for
her. Yet, there are hundreds of children like her.”
With donations, they give
patients the opportunity to live, care for them medically,
psychologically, socially, more importantly spiritually—to
help them find a way out of despair and discover the meaning
of this illness in their lives. The women, men and children
I met were sick, but they were not worried about where their
next meal would come from or where they would sleep that night.
(see Orphan Resources)
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