Diakonia AIDS Ministry and an Address!

Diakonia AIDS Ministry (DAM) is one of my primary placements for this year. It also happens to be where I live. To say that I spend a lot of time here is an understatement. But it is a great place to be. I love the fact that I live here, I am meeting the people who come here often, and feel like I am starting to become part of the DAM community. It is a community in every sense of the word.

DAM was started in 2002 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA) and the brain child of Bishop Phaswana who felt the church needed to respond to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Thus DAM was created. It is on the same compound grounds as the ELCSA Central Diocese office and is an official part of the diocese, directly linking it with ELCSA both in doctrine and in physical location. Through its eight years the programs have morphed and changed into the DAM that has welcomed me with open arms.

DAM is organized by departments; each of these departments focuses on a different part of the community affect/infected by HIV/AIDS:
Orphans and Vulnerable Children(OVC) which works to support children who are orphaned, both in child headed households and living with extended family members. These children receive packages of food and household items when they are available. They are also assisted with obtaining IDs and government grants. The children come to the compound about once a month.
Support Group/Income Generating Projects this is for people who come to DAM and reveal their HIV status. They join the support group and also join projects that generate a monthly income. The current projects include a garden, daily meals prepared and sold to staff of both DAM and the Diocese Office, chickens for sale (hence the chickens who also live here and will never ever let me sleep past 7 am), and bead work.
Home Based Care (HBC)is on the ground around Soweto caring for HIV patients. They go out every day and literally care for people in every sense of the word care. They travel door to door checking on patients. They ensure that people have all IDs and grants they could obtain as well as nutritional food and all medications needed and that those medicines are administered as prescribed. When needed they schedule and accompany people to appointments.
Education and Training goes out and makes sure people have up-to-date and correct information on HIV/AIDS. They go to churches, malls, parking lots, and sometimes create their own events with simply a truck and loudspeaker!
Communication is the final department. This department sends out a quarterly newsletter. The newsletter includes testimonials from members of the DAM community, what is new, what is continuing, and what is starting.

I am helping in whatever manor I can be of service. I have filed papers in the office. I have sat in a meeting with HBC learning about the challenges they face day-to-day. I have even spent an afternoon weeding in the garden! For more information about DAM check out the power point at this website: http://www.mcselca.org/who/companion_synod/ Hopefully that gives some idea of what DAM consists of, it is so much more than the small paragraph I received in June. There is no way words can do DAM justice, how can you describe a community using words? It must be experienced but hopefully I can share the experience with you through this year.

Unrelated but very exciting....I have an address! The mail is not delivered to individual houses here but to the post office. People have post office boxes and it took some asking to figure out where exactly my mail was being sent and who I needed to speak to about picking up mail. As it turns out my mail is sent with the Central Diocese mail. It works really well as the bookkeeper of the Diocese goes about every other day to pick up mail. If you decide to send anything please let me know and I can give him the heads up that something is coming for me! Rumor is that it takes between 2-3 weeks for anything to reach here from the states. So if you want to find me:

Joy Waughtal
C/O Diakonia AIDS Ministry
PO Box 1210
Roodeport
1725
South Africa

As always thank you for thoughts, prayers, and support. I cannot say thank you enough or tell you how much it means to me. I am so thankful to be able to share these experiences.