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Ian Campbell believes pastors and ministry leaders should reform their efforts. "Caring by participatory relationships is the name of the game. We can't say partnership on my terms anymore. The foundation for partnership is in capacity development for families. We are already networked. We need partnerships based on community relationships."

Back in the slums of Nairobi, Anglican layman Francis Maina Mwangi is among the few men to volunteer as a health worker at St. John's Community Center. Mwangi, 45, his wife, and their five children live a short distance from the community center. Mwangi works more than one job to support his family, and he visits about 25 homes weekly, taking time to build relationships and talk about HIV.

"After they hear the news about being HIV postive, we need to give hope to them, their families, and relatives," Mwangi says. "The first step is to develop a relationship before the person is told. Then, when it is time to break bad news, the closeness is there."

Mwangi's standing in Nairobi's Pumwani slum community was tested recently as he took visitors on a walking tour of the slum. As the group was gingerly passing by women washing clothes in muddy basins and barefoot children shouting the only English words they know ("How are you?"), a drunken man pushed his way in front of a visitor and shouted, "You are rich and I am poor! Give me food." As onlookers stood speechless, Mwangi elbowed his way forward, responding, "You are not poor! You have two hands and two feet. You are rich." Dazed, the man abruptly turned and marched away while yelling profanities toward the group. Afterward, Mwangi asks one visitor, "How would you be in relationship with that man?"

What Mwangi and other African Christians say they discovered in their personal crusade against the virus is best expressed in the native language si-Tswana: "Motho ke motho ka Batho" ("A person is a person through people"). For African Christians, servanthood in communion infuses their suffering with meaning. "When we invest in people and spend your life with the poor, God has a way of rewarding you," Zambian Pentecostal pastor Banda says. "Your life has been worthwhile."

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February 7 2000, Vol. 44, No. 2