A challenge to Canadian grandmas
Dear editor,
Last summer several African grandmothers visited Canada. Their stories were sad and challenging. These strong faithful women have seen their families devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has ravaged Africa in the last 20 years. A whole generation of men and women has died, leaving millions of AIDS orphans.
Now, grandmothers and teenage girls are struggling to raise these millions of children – children who have tried to care and comfort their parents through AIDS-related illnesses, and then watched them die.
We are called to respond to this devastating and ongoing tragedy. The recent Facing AIDS – Facing Reality exhibit at All Saints Cathedral, Edmonton, has stirred us and again informed us about the work of the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) in HIV/AIDS ministries around the world and urged the following: 1. We can pray. 2. We can urge our government to facilitate the distribution of cheap, effective retroviral. 3. We are called to give to the PWRDF Partnership for Life initiative. Ask your parish priest and PWRDF parish representative about it. 4. As a grandmother, I challenge each grandmother in the Canadian church to make a donation of $1, $5, $10, $100 or even more, for each of your grandchildren to mark our solidarity with our sisters in Christ, those magnificent African grandmothers who are responsible for the feeding, clothing, education, and care of a generation of orphaned grandchildren.
So, let’s go for it, grandmothers of the Anglican Church of Canada!
Ruth Genge
Edmonton
