People
I have been at the edge of AIDS in China since 2003, I know the figures of projected spread and the main sources of infection etc, I can do the “NGO thing” when it comes to AIDS Awareness, but by and large, I rarely meet people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs)in person. The organizations I work with have focused on the plight of those who have been infected through blood selling or transfusions (mainly rural farmers at the bottom of China’s economic heap. For the nuns who deliver these services, who are often from farming backgrounds themselves, this work is a “shoe in” and while it has many challenges, fits easily into a traditional approach to “Charitable Works”. It has the added advantage of having no moral issues; these PLWHAs were infected by poverty and are innocent victims in any ordinary meaning of those words. In these days I have been introduced me to another group who are now living with, rather than dying of, HIV AIDS- namely urban gay men.
The situation of these PLWHAs is rather different from those of the poor farming families I have been more aware of up to now. These men are often educated and articulate, needing much less material support or encouragement than their country cousins. But urban sophistication does not go as deep as a superficial encounter might suggest and one finds that their circumstances have their own poignancies.
Many gay men in China are married (since not to marry is virtually impossible) so few are “out of the closet”. Many of those who live a gay lifestyle do so clandestinely, though that is changing for the young. The extra stigma of HIV+ status imposes a second hidden life on top of the first. The pathetic nature of the situation was brought home to me when, visiting a clinic, I watched obviously otherwise assured, self confident men, strip the labels from their tablet boxes, least anyone at home realize that it contained AIDS medication. Rejection by family is not uncommon, freedom to openly acknowledge ones condition in the workplace rare and support groups few. Although superficially urban gay PLWHAs have a better life, emotionally they are as much in need of support as anyone else.
Today I watched two Sisters deliver such support, not in some dramatic ‘do gooder’ kind of way, but just by being there. They had acted as midwives for a support organization and the occasion was to allow the 30 members to express their gratitude. The Sisters were probably, in a country where such things usually matter, the least educated of the group, but it was very obvious that these men appreciated the unconditional acceptance offered them more than any professional support.
Watching the unaffected approach of the Sisters made me aware that these men were not a collection of politically correct acronyms but People made in the image and likeness of God. Rather cold political correctness was not what was asked of me a priest and a baptized Christian, but rather unconditional love for each of them. These Chinese Sisters use a terribly non PC description common in Chinese “infected people” to describe those whose gratitude they were accepting, but despite that, their Faith filled view meant they saw only human beings to be loved. My being with them allowed me to see as they saw and that has made, this week has made all the difference. Thanks be to God.