Disarmed} Greetings from Kenya!

[Guest guest]

---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Czerny <mczerny@...>Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 11:38 PM

Subject: {Disarmed} Greetings from Kenya!aids@...

Dear colleague, here is a recent bulletin from the African Jesuit AIDS Network. If you would like to receive AJANews each month (it is free of charge), please just reply "yes". With best wishes!

AJANews 63 – January 2008

Love that heals: Adieu, Tina!

Séverin Mukoko SJ and his companion, Rigobert Kyungu SJ, share memories of Tina, a dear friend who died of AIDS last year. Tina was one of the first beneficiaries of Parlons-SIDA (Let's Talk about AIDS), a care and prevention programme of the Jesuit parish of Christ the King in Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Confusion

Sunday 22 July 2007, 5:25 pm: My mobile phone rang but I refused to take the call, because I suspected I would hear a friend sharing her decision to leave her husband after eight years of marriage. The telephone rang a second time, begging me to answer. I gave in. A female voice spoke: Papa Séverin, Ngai mama Kabibi. Maman TINA akufi (Papa Séverin, mama Tina is dead). Kabibi is Tina's younger sister, who used to look after her throughout her illness. I remained silent for some minutes. Lukela biso motuka, tomema nzoto na morgue ya hôpital general (We need a vehicle to transport her body to the morgue at the general hospital), continued Kabibi. I'll call you back soon, I told her.

What to do? It was a Sunday, a day when public transport is so hard to come by in Kinshasa! I was two hours away from the place where Kabibi and the dead woman were. And that Sunday, most of my Jesuit companions, who may have been able to help me, were with our recently ordained priests celebrating their First Mass. What could be done?

After reflecting for a few minutes, I had an idea. That was it! There was a companion who could help me. He knew Tina very well. I grabbed my phone and dialled his number: Rigo, where are you now?

In Bumbu, came the reply.

Bumbu is the town neighbouring Ngiringiri. There, in a clinic, lay the lifeless body of Tina, before two downcast mourners: her sister and her daughter aged 13, now orphaned. By pure chance, Fr Rigobert Kyungu happened to be 20 minutes from the place. A few words of explanation sufficed for him to go in search of the woman who, some years ago, was a friend of our community of Kisangani. After a short prayer, Rigo blessed Tina and went to look for transport to take her body, utterly destroyed by the monster that is the HIV virus, to the morgue.

Who was Tina?

It was in September 2002 that I got to know the young mother of two, when Parlons-SIDA (Let's talk about AIDS) was launched. She was one of the first beneficiaries of this project. One sunny afternoon, a friend, a diocesan priest, asked me to go with him to visit his cousin, who was seriously ill. She really needs your help. She is HIV-positive, he told me on the way there. When we arrived, I discovered a beautiful human being, covered with bedclothes yet shivering with cold near a small brazier.

Nature had been no less generous towards her. Despite her emaciated state, she was still attractive! After a brief conversation, we left the place, promising to return another time, which we did two days later. That time, I took a religious sister, who knew her too. Curiously, it was another Tina we met then. We chatted as if we had known each other for ever. I felt it hadn't taken Tina long to trust me, because she didn't hesitate to talk to me about her life and disease.

I used to live in Isiro with my husband who was a diamond cutter. We had a good life with our two children, a girl and a boy. When my husband fell ill, people were quick to say he was a victim of sorcery. But a medical test revealed it was HIV. What a mess! Lord, what will become of me? I felt the sky crashing down on my head. Oh my God, is this how you repay me for my fidelity to this man? All of a sudden, I understood that my husband had been cheating on me. He had been going out with other women. I revolted against God: Why me?

It wasn't easy for me to listen to this story. Tears weren't that not far off, and I had to make an extra effort to control myself. I prayed silently: Lord, give me the words to console this woman. And I reassured her: Tina, you know the Lord loves you very much. And we love you too. My door is always wide open to welcome you. You are welcome in our community.

Thus Tina became not only a beneficiary of Parlons-SIDA but above all a friend of our Jesuit community. She became the daughter of the house, our daughter. I can still hear her voice when she used to enter our door timidly, asking the pastor: Papa Zabala, papa Séverin azali? And when I was away, she happily visited Papa Rigobert instead.

A miracle!

Tina's prognosis was always dire. Sometimes she would be given no more than a month to live, sometimes just a few days. Her skin barely covered her bones, and she showed all the possible symptoms manifested by people with AIDS. Each time they appeared, from tuberculosis to repeated diarrhoea, we rushed her hospital, passing through crises of nervous depression. All this was very trying for us.

Her family were exasperated with her. For them the only solution would be for this woman to die as soon as possible especially since, at frequent intervals in times of crisis, she would leave the house in the middle of the night for an unknown destination. It took time to make her father and stepmother understand that this was a stage she needed to go through. I still remember her nocturnal appearances in our community. The guards told me once: Father, Tina was here at night. We forbade her from waking you up and it wasn't the first time. I told them not to hesitate to wake me up if Tina ever came again, which she did a few days later. Once, at around 3am, one of the guards came to wake me up, saying: Tina is outside; she wants to see you at all costs. This happened more than once. I would sit with her, and listen to her crying about her sins until sleep overcame her.

We decided to do our utmost to help Tina overcome the crisis, to be more attentive and to show her more love. My Jesuit community and my loyal co-worker, maman Thérèse Nyolo, decided to treat her as our daughter, sister and friend. Some Sundays, when time allowed, I would accompany her and her younger brother for a walk through the town and take a meal in a restaurant.

Tina needed to be shown concrete acts of love. After about two months, she miraculously regained enough weight to join one of the parish choirs and to resume a normal life. She never failed to say: I am no longer ill. The Lord has healed me.

Torn apart!

After two years of ministry that was at once trying – since I saw human beings dying every day – and humbling and exciting, the Lord called me through my superiors to go elsewhere. On the one hand, I felt resistance, considering my efforts to put in place the project of struggle against AIDS, and the relationships woven with infected people and their families. But the alacrity, enthusiasm and freedom required by obedience motivated me. My only prayer was that after me, someone would be freed to continue my work well, and this was done.

While waiting for the arrival of my successor, Rigobert, who was assuring the continuity of the project, organised a party for people with AIDS to bid me farewell. Rather than a party, it was a time for Tina to mourn. Throughout the party, she cried and cried. This time, I couldn't keep back my own tears.

After my departure from Kisangani, Tina decided to move to Kinshasa, and I didn't hear anything from her for a long time.

The reunion!

One day, two years later, my telephone rang while I was in Kinshasa for a meeting, and I heard Tina's voice. I was with Rigobert. We arranged to meet and in the afternoon, I was told that a woman and a young girl were in the parlour to see me. It was Tina and her daughter aëlle. It was like a dream for me to see this woman again: four years ago she was dying but now she appeared in good form. She repeated her usual refrain: God has healed me. Thereafter I called Tina regularly from Kikwit and insofar as possible, we always provided modest support for her survival and for her daughter's education.

Her hour has come

In July 2007, her sister called to let me know that Tina was very unwell. She wasn't eating and no longer left the house. Tina was eligible to take ARVs and she had received them. But before starting to take them, the pastor of the church where she had started to worship, had to bless the drugs and decide whether Tina could take them or not. Meanwhile, the virus continued to eat away at her, wasting the scarce weight she had managed to gain.

On the eve of her death, a Saturday, I arrived in Kinshasa and went immediately to the place where she was hospitalised. It was moving. I was the last person she talked to; according to her sister, she never spoke again. Papa Séverin, I must return to Kisangani, she told me. I promised to help her with the doctor's permission, knowing all along that it was practically impossible. She couldn't even sit up any longer. And she added: Muana na ngai osalisa ye, kolemba ye te (My daughter must be supported, don't give up). I promise, I replied. Leaving the room, I told her sister this was the end. It came 24 hours later.

So after a long battle against the virus which keeps on ravaging our towns, villages and families, Tina is dead. AIDS continues to kill but, wherever there is love, life can be somewhat prolonged. People who are infected and affected by this virus need great affection. If, within our possibilities, we can convey such love to them, their life may be prolonged even if only by one day, but a rich and beautiful day.

Thank you Tina!

Rigobert Kyungu SJ adds: Thank you, Séverin, for this beautiful and honest testimony. I could say as much about Tina. But one word suffices: thank you! I never imagined I would see her body so soon after her death. In her eternal rest, Tina regained all her beauty. Her face was calm, peaceful. I told myself: Her body will no longer suffer! It was no coincidence that I was there that evening. For me, it was a gift of gratitude offered by Tina, that I should see her body before its burial. What a privilege! Gratitude for all we were for her. I stayed there for some moments to look at her face one last time, that it may remain forever etched within me, with all the memories. It is I who owes a debt of gratitude to Tina, for her beautiful gift. Thank you Tina!

Spanish Jesuit contributes to crucial discovery about HIV transmission

Wenceslao Soto SJ, Socius to the Provincial of Baetica, Spain, reports: On 14 November 2007, the entire national press reported a very important discovery in the field of the transmission of HIV, worked out by, among others, our fellow Jesuit Guillermo "Willie" Giménez Gallego. It is news of great significance. It deals with a protein, the SEVI protein, which is found in the seminal fluid and which is responsible for carrying the virus to the cell membranes. Wily has been the one who studied the amyloidal structure of that singular protein, and its discovery shall have great importance in the advancement of the knowledge of infection through HIV and sexual transmission. The discovery has been published in the review CELL, one of the most prestigious reviews in the field of molecular biology.

Fr Giménez, who belongs to the Spanish High Council of Scientific Research, was involved as a specialist in protein physical-chemistry.

AJANews is published monthly by the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN) in English, French and Portuguese and is available free of charge. To subscribe, or to change your e-mail address, please click on Update Profile/Email Address below or write to ajanews@....

le Vella, Editor Simiyu Wanyonyi SJ and Marcel Uwineza SJ, Associate Editors

Czerny SJ, Publisher

African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN)Box 571 Sarit00606 Nairobi, KENYA

fax: +254-20-387-7971aids@...

MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from " rs6.net " claiming to be http://www.jesuitaids.net

-- ChifuNew York City

[Guest guest]

---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Czerny <mczerny@...>Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 11:38 PM

Subject: {Disarmed} Greetings from Kenya!aids@...

Dear colleague, here is a recent bulletin from the African Jesuit AIDS Network. If you would like to receive AJANews each month (it is free of charge), please just reply "yes". With best wishes!

AJANews 63 – January 2008

Love that heals: Adieu, Tina!

Séverin Mukoko SJ and his companion, Rigobert Kyungu SJ, share memories of Tina, a dear friend who died of AIDS last year. Tina was one of the first beneficiaries of Parlons-SIDA (Let's Talk about AIDS), a care and prevention programme of the Jesuit parish of Christ the King in Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Confusion

Sunday 22 July 2007, 5:25 pm: My mobile phone rang but I refused to take the call, because I suspected I would hear a friend sharing her decision to leave her husband after eight years of marriage. The telephone rang a second time, begging me to answer. I gave in. A female voice spoke: Papa Séverin, Ngai mama Kabibi. Maman TINA akufi (Papa Séverin, mama Tina is dead). Kabibi is Tina's younger sister, who used to look after her throughout her illness. I remained silent for some minutes. Lukela biso motuka, tomema nzoto na morgue ya hôpital general (We need a vehicle to transport her body to the morgue at the general hospital), continued Kabibi. I'll call you back soon, I told her.

What to do? It was a Sunday, a day when public transport is so hard to come by in Kinshasa! I was two hours away from the place where Kabibi and the dead woman were. And that Sunday, most of my Jesuit companions, who may have been able to help me, were with our recently ordained priests celebrating their First Mass. What could be done?

After reflecting for a few minutes, I had an idea. That was it! There was a companion who could help me. He knew Tina very well. I grabbed my phone and dialled his number: Rigo, where are you now?

In Bumbu, came the reply.

Bumbu is the town neighbouring Ngiringiri. There, in a clinic, lay the lifeless body of Tina, before two downcast mourners: her sister and her daughter aged 13, now orphaned. By pure chance, Fr Rigobert Kyungu happened to be 20 minutes from the place. A few words of explanation sufficed for him to go in search of the woman who, some years ago, was a friend of our community of Kisangani. After a short prayer, Rigo blessed Tina and went to look for transport to take her body, utterly destroyed by the monster that is the HIV virus, to the morgue.

Who was Tina?

It was in September 2002 that I got to know the young mother of two, when Parlons-SIDA (Let's talk about AIDS) was launched. She was one of the first beneficiaries of this project. One sunny afternoon, a friend, a diocesan priest, asked me to go with him to visit his cousin, who was seriously ill. She really needs your help. She is HIV-positive, he told me on the way there. When we arrived, I discovered a beautiful human being, covered with bedclothes yet shivering with cold near a small brazier.

Nature had been no less generous towards her. Despite her emaciated state, she was still attractive! After a brief conversation, we left the place, promising to return another time, which we did two days later. That time, I took a religious sister, who knew her too. Curiously, it was another Tina we met then. We chatted as if we had known each other for ever. I felt it hadn't taken Tina long to trust me, because she didn't hesitate to talk to me about her life and disease.

I used to live in Isiro with my husband who was a diamond cutter. We had a good life with our two children, a girl and a boy. When my husband fell ill, people were quick to say he was a victim of sorcery. But a medical test revealed it was HIV. What a mess! Lord, what will become of me? I felt the sky crashing down on my head. Oh my God, is this how you repay me for my fidelity to this man? All of a sudden, I understood that my husband had been cheating on me. He had been going out with other women. I revolted against God: Why me?

It wasn't easy for me to listen to this story. Tears weren't that not far off, and I had to make an extra effort to control myself. I prayed silently: Lord, give me the words to console this woman. And I reassured her: Tina, you know the Lord loves you very much. And we love you too. My door is always wide open to welcome you. You are welcome in our community.

Thus Tina became not only a beneficiary of Parlons-SIDA but above all a friend of our Jesuit community. She became the daughter of the house, our daughter. I can still hear her voice when she used to enter our door timidly, asking the pastor: Papa Zabala, papa Séverin azali? And when I was away, she happily visited Papa Rigobert instead.

A miracle!

Tina's prognosis was always dire. Sometimes she would be given no more than a month to live, sometimes just a few days. Her skin barely covered her bones, and she showed all the possible symptoms manifested by people with AIDS. Each time they appeared, from tuberculosis to repeated diarrhoea, we rushed her hospital, passing through crises of nervous depression. All this was very trying for us.

Her family were exasperated with her. For them the only solution would be for this woman to die as soon as possible especially since, at frequent intervals in times of crisis, she would leave the house in the middle of the night for an unknown destination. It took time to make her father and stepmother understand that this was a stage she needed to go through. I still remember her nocturnal appearances in our community. The guards told me once: Father, Tina was here at night. We forbade her from waking you up and it wasn't the first time. I told them not to hesitate to wake me up if Tina ever came again, which she did a few days later. Once, at around 3am, one of the guards came to wake me up, saying: Tina is outside; she wants to see you at all costs. This happened more than once. I would sit with her, and listen to her crying about her sins until sleep overcame her.

We decided to do our utmost to help Tina overcome the crisis, to be more attentive and to show her more love. My Jesuit community and my loyal co-worker, maman Thérèse Nyolo, decided to treat her as our daughter, sister and friend. Some Sundays, when time allowed, I would accompany her and her younger brother for a walk through the town and take a meal in a restaurant.

Tina needed to be shown concrete acts of love. After about two months, she miraculously regained enough weight to join one of the parish choirs and to resume a normal life. She never failed to say: I am no longer ill. The Lord has healed me.

Torn apart!

After two years of ministry that was at once trying – since I saw human beings dying every day – and humbling and exciting, the Lord called me through my superiors to go elsewhere. On the one hand, I felt resistance, considering my efforts to put in place the project of struggle against AIDS, and the relationships woven with infected people and their families. But the alacrity, enthusiasm and freedom required by obedience motivated me. My only prayer was that after me, someone would be freed to continue my work well, and this was done.

While waiting for the arrival of my successor, Rigobert, who was assuring the continuity of the project, organised a party for people with AIDS to bid me farewell. Rather than a party, it was a time for Tina to mourn. Throughout the party, she cried and cried. This time, I couldn't keep back my own tears.

After my departure from Kisangani, Tina decided to move to Kinshasa, and I didn't hear anything from her for a long time.

The reunion!

One day, two years later, my telephone rang while I was in Kinshasa for a meeting, and I heard Tina's voice. I was with Rigobert. We arranged to meet and in the afternoon, I was told that a woman and a young girl were in the parlour to see me. It was Tina and her daughter aëlle. It was like a dream for me to see this woman again: four years ago she was dying but now she appeared in good form. She repeated her usual refrain: God has healed me. Thereafter I called Tina regularly from Kikwit and insofar as possible, we always provided modest support for her survival and for her daughter's education.

Her hour has come

In July 2007, her sister called to let me know that Tina was very unwell. She wasn't eating and no longer left the house. Tina was eligible to take ARVs and she had received them. But before starting to take them, the pastor of the church where she had started to worship, had to bless the drugs and decide whether Tina could take them or not. Meanwhile, the virus continued to eat away at her, wasting the scarce weight she had managed to gain.

On the eve of her death, a Saturday, I arrived in Kinshasa and went immediately to the place where she was hospitalised. It was moving. I was the last person she talked to; according to her sister, she never spoke again. Papa Séverin, I must return to Kisangani, she told me. I promised to help her with the doctor's permission, knowing all along that it was practically impossible. She couldn't even sit up any longer. And she added: Muana na ngai osalisa ye, kolemba ye te (My daughter must be supported, don't give up). I promise, I replied. Leaving the room, I told her sister this was the end. It came 24 hours later.

So after a long battle against the virus which keeps on ravaging our towns, villages and families, Tina is dead. AIDS continues to kill but, wherever there is love, life can be somewhat prolonged. People who are infected and affected by this virus need great affection. If, within our possibilities, we can convey such love to them, their life may be prolonged even if only by one day, but a rich and beautiful day.

Thank you Tina!

Rigobert Kyungu SJ adds: Thank you, Séverin, for this beautiful and honest testimony. I could say as much about Tina. But one word suffices: thank you! I never imagined I would see her body so soon after her death. In her eternal rest, Tina regained all her beauty. Her face was calm, peaceful. I told myself: Her body will no longer suffer! It was no coincidence that I was there that evening. For me, it was a gift of gratitude offered by Tina, that I should see her body before its burial. What a privilege! Gratitude for all we were for her. I stayed there for some moments to look at her face one last time, that it may remain forever etched within me, with all the memories. It is I who owes a debt of gratitude to Tina, for her beautiful gift. Thank you Tina!

Spanish Jesuit contributes to crucial discovery about HIV transmission

Wenceslao Soto SJ, Socius to the Provincial of Baetica, Spain, reports: On 14 November 2007, the entire national press reported a very important discovery in the field of the transmission of HIV, worked out by, among others, our fellow Jesuit Guillermo "Willie" Giménez Gallego. It is news of great significance. It deals with a protein, the SEVI protein, which is found in the seminal fluid and which is responsible for carrying the virus to the cell membranes. Wily has been the one who studied the amyloidal structure of that singular protein, and its discovery shall have great importance in the advancement of the knowledge of infection through HIV and sexual transmission. The discovery has been published in the review CELL, one of the most prestigious reviews in the field of molecular biology.

Fr Giménez, who belongs to the Spanish High Council of Scientific Research, was involved as a specialist in protein physical-chemistry.

AJANews is published monthly by the African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN) in English, French and Portuguese and is available free of charge. To subscribe, or to change your e-mail address, please click on Update Profile/Email Address below or write to ajanews@....

le Vella, Editor Simiyu Wanyonyi SJ and Marcel Uwineza SJ, Associate Editors

Czerny SJ, Publisher

African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN)Box 571 Sarit00606 Nairobi, KENYA

fax: +254-20-387-7971aids@...

MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from " rs6.net " claiming to be http://www.jesuitaids.net

-- ChifuNew York City