I visited some of the villages around Beira on three separate occasions. Once, for youth leader training; second, to see the opening of the new church building in Manga (it was tiny and we had four congregations meeting in it!); and third, with Rose (right) and Sophia doing community prayer visits. The last of those visits, to Macarunga, was especially interesting - and harrowing.
On the one hand, with very short but regular visits, and the simplest praise and prayer, Sophia and Rose have seen healing and salvation in several different contexts. Paralysed people with freedom of movement; a husband's life changing and his wife deciding to follow Jesus too etc. All simply wonderful, amazing stuff. On the other, we talked about HIV/AIDS - and the situation is, frankly, out of control. God have mercy. Official (yes, official) figures put the number of infected throughout Mozambique at one third of the population. Unofficially, however - and Moz is not unique in this - the infection rate may well be 50%.
Fast forward twenty years and the consequences are horrific. Well, they are horrific now, although rarely spoken about publicly. Father, what can be done to halt - and heal - such obscene and vicious tragedy?
