“What will happen to my children when I die? No one will take them when they know that I died of AIDS.” 

In 2002, I was living the suburban American dream. I was the mom with the minivan, three kids, the dog and too many soccer games to go between in Orange County, California. Life was comfortable.

But that comfortable life was forever changed one day when I read a magazine article on AIDS in Africa.

The pictures of skeletal people with captions stating that 17 million people had died and 12 million children had been orphaned left me stunned. I did not know anyone HIV positive, nor did I know any orphans.

A Holy Week call to action for Christians

In 2003, the humanitarian organization World Relief invited me on a trip to Mozambique. There, I met a woman named Flora, who altered the way I saw the world. She was the first to ask the question that was echoed by hundreds of women I talked to afterward: “What will happen to my children when I die?” 

The second woman I met was Joanna, whose name means “God is gracious.” She was days away from dying, homeless, living under a tree, thrown out of two villages because of her disease, and she crawled over on her hands and knees to sit on a piece of plastic to welcome me.

She, a dying woman under a tree, welcomed me.

Where is the good news of the Gospel? Where is the grace of God for Joanna? What does the good news have to say in the face of such suffering?

In watching the World Relief........

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