While in Thailand, my team and I have been working with Agape Home, a children’s home for HIV/AIDS kids. It’s been awesome. The kids are hungry for love, and we’ve been happy to give it.
God has revealed a lot to me while working with Agape. He’s taught me that he sees a person’s soul and spirit, not their bodies. The kids at Agape may be HIV positive, but that doesn’t matter to Him. Our bodies are earthly vessels. He cares about our spiritual bodies, and that we will someday be with Him.
For those who don’t know much about HIV or AIDS, HIV is the virus and AIDS is the symptoms of the virus. You can be born HIV positive or you can contract it through blood contamination or sexual acts. AIDS weakens the immune system, allowing life threatening infections and cancers to invade the body. HIV and AIDS are admittedly scary. You can take medication to control HIV, but there is no cure.
Avis Rideout, our ministry host and founder of Agape Home, first came to Thailand at the age of 18, over 50 years ago. She told us about how no one would touch the HIV children, thus not giving them the nurturing they needed. She believes they died from being unloved as much as from the disease itself. People were too scared to love them. They couldn’t see past the flesh.
The kids we played with this month are in a loving environment. I’m happy that we were able to contribute a little to that. After all, no one deserves to feel unloved.
