Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church
SHARED by REV. CHARLES
A Church's HIV story
My name is Rev. Charles Straight. I am the pastor of the Faith United Methodist Church in Dolton, IL.
I have been HIV positive since 1987 and this is the story of how a few people and one church can make a difference in the lives of people living with HIV.
In the early 1980’s (about 1983-4) before there was much in the way of drugs to combat HIV, one church made a difference in a lot of lives.
Back when all we could do was watch our friends and loved ones die, and secretly pray Lord I hope I don’t get it, one church made a difference.
The Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church started an AIDS Ministry, and in a small corner of Chicago, healing took place for people with HIV disease.
It was the first of its kind in Chicago’s black community and one church made a difference.
Ten or so young adults got together with the blessings of our pastor and we went to work. We did education in every area of the congregation, from the youngest to the oldest. We had special programs, we put announcements in the weekly church bulletin, and when anyone would let us we went to other churches to speak about the horrors of AIDS.
Soon persons in our church came forward to say they were infected, and that’s when the real worked started. First there was Robert, then came William he was so young, and Karl who was not much older. For them we prayed, visited, there was not much else we could do. Later came the other Robert, he was in prison. We met with the late Rev. Mother Consuella York, a Cook County Chaplain, to help us write a letter pleading with the Governor for an early release for him so that he could die at home.
In 1991 they all died. But, by then we still had Quinton, Henry, and Jimmy, now we could do a little more than pray. There were some medications, and we had learned to find resources for families in need of things like hospital beds and in-home support services. So we became the AIDS Resource Ministry.
1992 brought three more deaths, but new names had been added. There was William, Joe, Payton, Untra, Michael, Ted, and Derrick. On any Sunday morning there might have been a special alter call for persons with AIDS and their families. There were no questions about how anyone got the disease, no judgments on them as human beings, we saw hurting and tried to heal it, we saw a need for love and compassion and we tried to fill it. We bought appliances, paid rents, cleaned apartments, bought medications, held the hands of the dying, let mothers cry on our shoulders, changed beds and bed-pans. All because we believed, no, we knew it was what Jesus would have done if he were still here in the flesh, so our hope was that he was satisfied with the work we did in his name.
I wish I could say our deaths due to HIV had stopped, but before we could finish 1996 we had buried all the above mentioned souls plus Mark, Ron, and Brandon.
Today, I think still far too many churches continue to let homophobia set their agendas, which along with stigma is the leading causes of forcing the very people we worked so hard to get to out of the darkness of fear and shame to go right back.
Although I’m so very disappointed in the work the Black Church has done as a whole around the need our community has for leadership in education, prevention, and the treatment of HIV, I still hold out hope, because I have seen what one church can do. Now there are many, but we still need many more to make the impact needed if we are to get to zero new infections in our community.