Bringing message on AIDS home — via Africa

Just a few years back, HIV/AIDS wasn't something Pastor Dean Curry thought much about.

Although he knew people who had died of AIDS, he wasn't aware of the enormity of it worldwide. It was kind of an "out of sight, out of mind" thing, said the senior pastor of Life Center, a megachurch in Tacoma.

But three years ago, a friend persuaded him to visit an exhibit on AIDS put together by World Vision, the Federal Way-based Christian relief organization. He put on headphones, hearing the voice of a boy who was orphaned after his parents died of AIDS.

Curry emerged changed — and determined to do something.

Last month, his church hosted "World Vision Experience: AIDS," the relief organization's touring interactive exhibit illustrating the effects of the AIDS pandemic through the real-life stories of four children in sub-Saharan Africa. The exhibit is at Bellevue's Westminster Chapel through Monday.

That some of the state's largest evangelical Christian churches have or are hosting the exhibit, and that it is being showcased at other megachurches across the country as part of a nationwide tour, shows a changing attitude among many evangelical Christians toward HIV/AIDS.

For years, World Vision has sought to get evangelical churches more involved. While some have worked on the issue for more than a decade, many others haven't, either because they disapproved of how people get HIV/AIDS or because of a lack of awareness.

But "there's been a sea change" since about five years ago, when only three or four people would show up to World Vision's church presentations, said Steve Haas, vice president for church relations.

Part of the change has undoubtedly been because of rising awareness among Americans in general, with everyone from President Bush to Bono talking about AIDS, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of those infected with HIV worldwide.

But it could also be because of World Vision's very deliberate strategy to emphasize the pandemic's effect on widows and orphans.

Part of it was out of necessity. Some five years ago, "the only way we could get a platform [in churches] was to talk about orphans and widows," Haas said.

But in the past several years, churches have "defrosted. ... [People] realize there's a difference between a virus and a person," he said.

But the challenge now, as people become aware of the scale of the epidemic, is how to make them care enough to do something.

Haas reels off a fast and long set of statistics: "If I said there are 70 million people infected, 30 million have died, 6,000 died every day ... you're overwhelmed. At some point, if I don't make this personal and bring this down to one, you will walk by this disease."

Hence, the strategy to personalize the HIV/AIDS pandemic through efforts such as the "Experience AIDS" exhibit.

Visitors to the exhibit follow the life stories of one of four children in Africa who've been affected by AIDS. They're given headphones to listen to the children's stories, while guided into a small series of rooms that replicate settings from the child's home. Everything from burlap curtains to old radios is designed to make visitors feel like they're experiencing what the child does.

"I have a 15-year-old son," said Curry, the Life Center pastor. "So when you hear a 15-year-old talk about when he's the head of the household [because his parents died of AIDS], it's easy to say: What would happen if I was gone, my wife was gone, and my son was left by himself?"

In the past few years, Curry has visited those affected by HIV/AIDS in Lesotho. Along with Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma and other officials, he helped found a group that last year raised $400,000 for World Vision's HIV/AIDS efforts.

Linda Coppess hopes the exhibit will move people the way her visit last year to Uganda affected her.

She held the babies of women with HIV/AIDS, sang and sewed with the women, listened to their stories.

"For me, in the past, the statistics were numbers," said Coppess, a member of Westminster Chapel who's managing the exhibit there.

"But when you've gone there, held a baby who has AIDS, and there's nothing you can do," you want to make an impact, she said.

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com