My team travels to HIV clinic

Working with HIV-stricken village heartbreaking

The young lady from Germany told me to think TIA - This Is Africa - when I see things I don’t understand or that seem confusing to me. There are things that we need to accept as TIA, she tells me. The changes are pretty extreme for me and I know it’ll take some adjusting.

The sky on my first day is a deep shade of blue, the land red as the soil, and the sun shining brightly. 
I’ve been told it’s winter here, though I have yet to feel the fall chill brought on in Canada when we prepare for a winter.  
The weather is just perfect. 
Today, our small team travels to a clinic. My team is a young man from Aurora, a woman from Madagascar and a young lady from Germany. We are ministering to patients; 90 per cent of whom are HIV positive. 
It is a blessing to see the people’s hearts as we gather with shakers, bongos, sticks and anything else that makes noise, to sing gospel African songs. You could see the patients light up with joy and new hope with the music.
I also have the opportunity to travel with Georgina resident Paul Watson to pick up food donations from two large companies. I don’t think I’ve seen so much food packed into a van before. But it all fit and we are able to pack it up tonight, to take it tomorrow to a different clinic.
The young lady from Germany told me to think TIA - This Is Africa - when I see things I don’t understand or that seem confusing to me. There are things that we need to accept as TIA, she tells me. The changes are pretty extreme for me and I know it’ll take some adjusting. Luckily for me, I have a while to do just that.
“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing is impossible for you.” – Matthew 18:20-21
As a team here, with faith, the things that seem impossible to our earthly minds can be accomplished.
I will send more about my trip soon.

— Emily Cook is a Carleton University journalism student from Georgina who has joined a missionary couple from Keswick, Paul and Alejandra Watson, in South Africa to work in an HIV clinic, as well as in orphanages and shelters for people who have lost families to HIV. She will be there for a little over a month and will send occasional articles and photographs to share her experiences with readers about the lives of the HIV stricken people.