Global AIDS Crisis |
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"We must show charity towards the sick. Let us go and wait on them and comfort them," said St. Alphonsus Ligouri many years ago. He must be very pleased that his admonitions are not being forgotten in our day. The HIV/AIDS virus has lived in our world and so in our people for 25 years now. Many individuals and groups are intent on educating us to the devastation of this disease. We can read about it. We can talk about it. But unless we do something about it, HIV/AIDS will not go away. Pat Aseltyne, IHM, and Rose Graham, IHM, with a child from Casa de Esperanza Casa de Esperanza de los Niņos (Children's House of Hope) is a small agency tucked into a poor neighborhood just south of downtown Houston, Texas. Since the AIDS epidemic became known in the early eighties, Casa has worked quietly and efficiently to minister to those people who have contracted AIDS and then passed it on to their children. It has been the privilege of another IHM and I to minister to these children. Rose Graham, IHM, helped to care for the children just before moving to the IHM Motherhouse to take up a new care ministry. I've begun my twelfth year of service to the children who reside at Casa and to the parents who need assistance when the children return to them. Two small children, whom I will call Tommy and Jenny, came to Casa some time ago. These children are brother and sister. Casa was contacted by Child Protective Services to ask if we had room for the children because they were being neglected. Both children suffer from physical and emotional deprivation. Tommy is deaf because he was not taken to a doctor when he was ill. He uses sign language. Caregivers have spent many frustrating hours trying to cope with Tommy and Jenny's up-and-down responses to situations that most children could easily handle. Both children manifest rage at the simplest provocation. They want loving attention, yet are often oppositional in their attempt to receive attention. They are typical of many of the children to whom we minister. Aside from my responsibilities of visiting families of children who need assistance, I at times care for Casa children who are in residence so that caregivers can have some time away. On one such occasion, I cared for Jenny for a few weeks. I found out that she is very clever and came to know this on a particular night. As I was pouring body lotion into Jenny's hand, she withdrew her hand and the lotion fell to the floor. I gave Jenny one of those classroom teacher looks. With a twinkle in her eye Jenny looked at me and said, "I think your mind is telling my mind what your mind is thinking." We laughed together. Jenny had been guardedly stoic, fearful of rejection and incapable of sensing humor in a situation. I experienced this situation as an insight that Jenny is capable of erasing some of her deep emotional scars or at least relearning the simplicity of love. Both Jenny and Tommy will be placed in loving, caring foster homes soon. We at Casa pray that their continuing struggle will not be too difficult for them. As children leave Casa for home, for foster care or adoption, their places are taken by other little ones so that Casa de Esperanza de Los Niņos can "wait on them and comfort them." By Pat Aseltyne, IHM |
