Abbott Church to hold benefit for Ethiopian AIDS victims

by Mary Helen Sprecher
newsroom@baltimoreguide.com

Ask anyone for their image of Ethiopia, and you’ll probably get the same answers: poverty, drought, flies, starvation.

The members of Abbott Memorial Presbyterian Church have additional answers: Friends. People they know. People they hope to visit again.

For the past several years, the church has been taking part in the Addis Ababa AIDS Homecare Project, a project that provides medical, economic, emotional and spiritual support to HIV-positive individuals in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And in this case, providing support goes well beyond dropping coins into the collection box.

“We’ve made ongoing trips a couple of times a year,” said Rev. Paul Warren, pastor of Abbott. “People from our church have gone over.”

To continue its mission, the church, located at 3426 Bank Street, hosts a fundraising concert on Saturday, May 12 at 7 p.m. Funds raised will be used to purchase medical supplies and other necessities. The concert is open to the public and features longtime Canton resident Mark Renner, a musician who is also a visual artist. Freewill offerings and donations will be taken.

Renner is one of many residents who have made the trek to Africa and who returned feeling enriched by the experience. Other parishioners have included doctors, nurses and others with medical training, who could help provide hands-on care. The program is not limited to trained individuals, however; Renner, a UPS worker, said that he gained much from his travels.

“I was able to dip my toes into a missionary experience, and I feel like my heart beame entwined with some of the people who lived there. You go there and you work there, and you come home with a pocketful of people you’re corresponding with. I felt compelled to return.”

The involvement of the church in the project actually came from Warren, whose brother, Andy, founded the project itself. Andy Warren, according to his brother, had been working in Africa for approximately 25 years, and upon noticing the marked need for care of HIV-positive individuals about five years ago, had come up with the concept of a home-based care project.

“When the AIDS epidemic really started in Africa, my brother noticed that people who contracted the virus would be thrown out of their villages. They had nowhere to go and no way to get treatment of any kind, so they would make their way to the city (Addis Ababa).”

But once there, said Warren, there was little for them. Lacking any money for medical care, they became part of the city’s homeless population.

“What my brother would tell me was that people were literally living outisde the gates of the hospital in the hope of getting free medical care. And they were dying there because there was no treatment.”

Andy Warren’s project literally began, therefore, as hospice care, according to Paul. Without antiretroviral drugs (known in the trade as ARVs), the program was limited to basic patient maintenance such as pain relief and wound care.

But there was also a part that went beyond the immediate surroundings.

“People were afraid of dying because they didn’t have any money for a proper burial, something that was really important in their culture. So part of the program was promising them they would have a burial. And there were also a lot of women who were widows, and they wanted to make sure their children were cared for after they were gone.”

A boost to HIV-positive patients worldwide came later in the form of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. A $15 billion, five year effort, the program was the largest commitment ever by any nation for an international health initiative.

But that, according to Paul Warren, also had its downfalls.

“As is the case with a a lot of programs where there’s government money involved, there are people who realize they can get rich with that—so you would have people who would set up clinics in the areas, and people would go there and begin to get ARVs, and suddenly the clinic would be gone.”

The virus, said Warren, quickly becomes drug resistant if the exact treatment protocol is not followed. Patients who had just started on anti-virals, therefore, could suddenly find themselves far more ill, were they unable to access those medications.

The program evolved to meet this need.

“Our project quickly became the program for helping people take their medications and take care of themselves,” said Warren.

The program requires HIV-positive patients to report weekly to a central clinic. There, it provides those individuals with a week’s worth of medication at a time. It also provides education on how and when medications should be taken. Each “beneficiary,” as Warren terms the patients, receives a Timex watch with two alarms (since medications have to be taken twice daily) as well as a pill container where medications can be stored. “Expert patients”—HIV-positive individuals who are successfully following a treatment regimen—teach newly diagnosed patients how to dose themselves.

Already, said Warren, there are signs of improvement. In the past, church members would go to Ethiopia and return home. They would go back to Africa several months later and find that a number of those they had been treating had died. But with regular treatment, they began seeing a reduction in mortality. The children, he added, showed an especially dramatic improvement.

“That’s the most exciting thing,” said Warren. “Now we come back and they’re healthy, they’re in school.”

The project is one of the first to treat HIV-infected children in Africa. Previously, it was difficult to find medical care for HIV children since they required long-term care.

According to Renner, the artist who will be headlining the benefit concert this weekend, going to Ethiopia can be a shock to those who are used to the comforts of an American lifestyle. Although he had done research prior to his trip, the culture shock was profound.

“It’s a real contrast of two cultures,” Renner said. “The poverty there is so extreme. We think of poverty in America, but the median income in Ethiopia is 90 U.S. dollars a year, and there are lots of people living on a lot less than that.”

Footage on television news broadcasts does not convey what Renner terms “the full sensual experience.” In addition to the sight of a city overcrowded with poverty-stricken individuals, “there’s the smell, and that’s not always pleasant, between the garbage, the pollution and the teeming population.”

Still, he “can’t perceive not returning, and a lot of that is the relationships I have with people I’ve met there.” One boy, he added, “calls me his American father.” A small percentage of Renner’s contacts in Ethiopia have periodic e-mail access through the school they attend, and Renner is able to keep up with them.
“You expect the anti-American sentiment, but you don’t get that at all. It’s like you’re there as an ambassador, and their gratitude is very touching.”

When making the trek to Ethiopia, the group generally takes medical supplies and other materials, many of which were donated by local residents and businesses. Church members are responsible for raising the funding for their own airfare to and from Africa, and for their living expenses while they are there. A network of other churches is also involved in raising funds and sending volunteers.

The upcoming concert, said Warren, will help call attention to, as well as raise funds for, the project’s work in Ethiopia. In addition to singer-songwriter Renner’s performance (which Renner terms “folk music with washes of electronic sound”), the acoustic ensemble Straight On Red will be featured.

The concert is open to all, said Warren, not just to church members. After all, he added, HIV and AIDS are global, not religious issues. And according to Renner, it’s not something to walk away from.

“It’s had such an impact on my life. I can’t perceive not returning.”

Note: For more information on the project, go to the website of http://ethiopiahiv.org/ or to www.abbottchurch.org. Information on the church and the concert can be obtained by going to the church website, or by calling the church at 410-276-6207. Information on Mark Renner’s music can be obtained from KelvinGroveMedia.com. Renner has also published a book of his art, entitled “Sweeping the Floors in the Temple of Life.”