Sharon Pumpelly goes to work every day knowing that 500 people in her country will die of AIDS before the sun sets.
It’s a race against the clock that Christian workers across Africa are fighting. It is an epidemic that already has claimed 13 million Africans. But it’s one that can be stopped.
“I keep saying one generation could end AIDS — one generation of young people following God’s ways,” said Pumpelly, an International Mission Board worker in Nairobi. “Either I’m ignorant enough or naive enough or have faith enough to believe that’s how youth should be challenged. They are the ones, they are the hope, and they can make that kind of choice.”
That hope prompted Pumpelly and members of the student ministry team in Kampala, Uganda, to create a “True Love Waits” sexual abstinence program designed especially for African youth. The program began in 1993. Even by that time, AIDS was sweeping through the African continent claiming thousands of victims, particularly in Uganda.
“Nobody was giving information to young people to tell them premarital sex was something to be avoided, and that saying no is not bad,” said Cecilia Kabanda, who works with the Baptist Student Center in Uganda.
In 1994, Pumpelly shared the “True Love Waits” philosophy and program with Janet Museveni, the First Lady of Uganda. Museveni eagerly supported the team’s efforts to promote “True Love Waits” throughout the country.
“I just think God wanted to make His way known and He was putting all the parts together,” Pumpelly said.
Soon, requests for “True Love Waits” presentations came spilling in. School leaders wanted their students to hear the message about abstinence. Church leaders promoted the program among their youth members. Students shared the philosophy with neighbors and friends.
One young person told Pumpelly that, after hearing her presentation, he and his brother gathered the neighborhood kids together and taught them the “True Love Waits” philosophy.
“(He) said, ‘Thank you for teaching us. You have given us hope,’” she said.
Christian leaders often take the “True Love Waits” message into schools where a student drama team illustrates the effects of sexual promiscuity. “I watch youth share their dreams, then see ways sexual behavior can kill dreams,” she said.
(BP)
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