Tuesday, January 22, will be remembered by me as one of the most sobering days of my life. We had arrived in Kampala two days earlier, and spent Monday walking about the city noting the amount of organizations that dealt with AIDS relief in the city.

 

We stopped by Mengo hospital and had some amazing conversations with the deputy administrator and the chaplain, a sweet lady in her mid-fifties. She gave us our first insight into the AIDS epidemic that challenges Uganda, and the entire continent.

 

During the course of our conversation with her she told us that Mengo had one of the largest treatment center for AIDS patients in Kampala, and was the first hospital in Uganda to begin effective treatment of the scores of people needing immediate care.

 

After speaking to Dr. Frances at the HIV/AIDS clinic we were invited to travel with them the next day, and film them as they made house calls to those patients who were no longer strong enough to reach the clinic.

 

Early the next morning as Shanna and I climbed into the truck with Dr. Frances, a nurse, and a driver I asked him who usually cared for these people; he replied: “Whoever thinks they are important enough to care for”.

 

The first patient of the day was a man named Godfrey who was 43 years old. His mother was caring for him as he was unable to do much to care for himself. It amazed us to see his mother smiling, as she explained to the doctor the latest symptoms he was struggling with. As they both spoke to the doctor in their native tongue, Bugandan, she would reach over and gently rub his head.

 

We went from there down another dilapidated trail posing as an actual road to the home of a family whose 23 year old son was currently in the last stages of his battle with AIDS. His sweet mother and grandmother welcomed us into their home and down the dark hallway to where he laid in bed, emaciated and miserable.

 

As she knelt by the bed, his mother took his hand and began to spell on the palm. He had been stricken deaf, dumb, and blind but she had found a way to communicate with him. As she talked to us about his life, she recounted how he had graduated from university at the top of his class, and had been gainfully employed until AIDS had taken an immeasurable toll on his body. We prayed with her as we left, and she told us she would be praying for our child. We told her we would be praying for hers.

 

Pulling up to the next small home we were told that the mother had already died of AIDS, and the father would soon be next. The home was barely anything, but the girl who greeted us had a beautiful smile . . . she was 14 and now in charge. Her younger sister and brother sat outside as Dr. Frances worked with their father. I noticed that little Jeffrey, just 5 years old was quiet and distant as we were there. The nurse noticed me trying to make eye contact with him, “He is a new patient in our clinic . . . he got the virus from his mother before she died.”

 

In shock, we drove away thinking of this little family that was slowly being picked apart by what some observers have called black death.

 

The last home was quiet and empty. A small one-room shack in the slum area of Kampala. It was surrounded by family and friends. Inside laid the man who had died two hours earlier.

 

The words of Dr. Frances rang true to me. “Whoever thinks they are important enough to care for”. To some, there is no hope for those dying, to us there are the words of Jesus: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."