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Dick Day: A perspective on AIDS after 16 years in Malawi
By Manda Gibson
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| Dick and Charlotte Day |
When Dick Day sits with Christians who are dying with AIDS, their bodies often look like skin-covered skeletons and their swollen throats can no longer swallow. But in their faces, he sees Jesus. “To look at them and see a countenance on their faces of peace because of Jesus, even though they’re going through physical hell – that’s the strongest testimony I’ve ever seen to the reality of Jesus Christ,” Day said.
Day and his wife, Charlotte, have witnessed the AIDS crisis firsthand in Malawi, Africa, since 1990. Seeing what AIDS does to people who are created in God’s image has a staggering impact, Day said. But while the Days’ hearts have broken as friends have died of the disease, they also have been encouraged to see more and more young people choosing to save sex for marriage, therefore saving themselves from AIDS.
In the 1960s and 70s, the Days were living in California, where Dick began observing a paradigm shift from a Judeo-Christian to a post-modern worldview. At Christian studies centers, he worked to help people develop a biblical worldview, and he taught students about love, sex, and marriage from a biblical perspective. When HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980s, he began addressing that too. “AIDS was a result of what was happening in the paradigm shift in the values of the culture,” Day said.
In 1990, he took a one-year sabbatical to teach at the University of Malawi. There he developed relationships with the first ladies of Malawi and Uganda, which opened doors for him to share the truth about sex and AIDS with Africa’s young people.
Even with adults in the university setting, sex was a taboo topic in Malawi. “When I started addressing sex at the university, the head of the university thought Charlotte and I might be sent out of country,” Day said.
Day knew he had the first lady on his side, though, and he continued teaching the truth.
That one-year sabbatical turned into a long-term position that allowed the Days to remain in Malawi and address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They formed an NGO – Sub-Saharan Africa Family Enrichment (SAFE).
Through SAFE, they developed an eight-year curriculum that emphasizes abstinence, life skills, and character development. This curriculum for grades five through 12 is entitled WHY WAIT? Truth for Youth. Written in Africa, for Africans, it is contextualized for various African cultures. The curriculum uses the Bible as its main text, plus African stories and proverbs that reinforce key truths needed to develop a biblical worldview.
It modifies the traditional “ABC” method, which encourages people to abstain, be faithful, or use condoms. Why Wait? promotes a different method – which also has been embraced by people like Uganda’s President Museveni – that emphasizes abstaining and being faithful, but stresses character over condoms. Ultimately, the curriculum helps students understand they should avoid sex outside of marriage because they possess the dignity of being created in God’s image.
In 1992, Day was part of the first youth forum in Uganda, where he shared the Why Wait? message. Since then, the forum has become an annual, national event involving thousands of students, and Uganda’s HIV infection rate has decreased dramatically. During an international Christian conference on HIV/AIDS in 2002, Uganda’s first lady credited those forums, along with the involvement of the faith-based community, as beginning the turnaround of HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in Uganda.
The key: education
Until recently, when the Days left the University of Malawi to serve full time with SAFE, Day continued his work as an associate professor of human development and family studies; Charlotte chaired the university’s home economic department, where she emphasized family, community, and early childhood development. She worked with her students to develop a model village pre-school. According to UNICEF, it has become one of the two best rural models in the country. After attending the local primary school for three years, the children who attended this pre-school had a pass rate of 77 percent compared to 39 percent who had no pre-school and 47 percent who had attended other pre-schools.
Education is key to fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis, according to Day. “When you keep children and youth in school, it gives us the opportunity to build into them a biblical worldview. Worldview determines values; values determine behavior,” Day said. “We’re seeing a phenomenal response from the youth.”
SAFE trains teachers from Malawi and other parts of Africa in Why Wait?. In one school with more than 7,000 students in grades one through eight, 131 girls dropped out in one year due to pregnancy. Then a teacher trained by SAFE became headmaster and trained 42 teachers in Why Wait?. The next year, only 21 girls became pregnant; the following year, no one became pregnant.
“The youth of Africa are starting to catch the attention of the world when it comes to AIDS,” Day said. “People thought the answer would come from the West; it’s coming from the youth of Africa.”
That will be significant, he said, in the next wave of AIDS, which is predicted to strike China, India, and Russia by 2010. If it can be shown that Africa’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rates have fallen because youth have held to a biblical worldview that may open doors for the Gospel to be shared in other countries.
But, as of today, the battle for the minds of Africa is still raging. Though prevalence rates have fallen dramatically in Uganda and have started to decline in several other countries, in most African countries rates still are rising. And even as 50 percent of sub-Saharan Africans claim Christianity, HIV prevalence rates are alarmingly high. That’s because – though many Africans have embraced a form of Christianity – many haven’t been discipled as followers of Jesus and, thus, still retain portions of their traditional, animistic religions. Claiming that Christianity has failed in Africa, Islam is making sub-Saharan Africa a prime target.
“If we don’t capture the African mind in the next generation, the African continent could have the most rapid demise of Christianity,” Day said.
How the Church should respond
For years, the Days were discouraged when they visited the United States and saw the indifference of Western churches to Africa and the AIDS pandemic. “Africa has been the forgotten continent, the invisible people,” Day said. “Thank God that’s changing.”
He’s encouraged by people like Saddleback Church members and Pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay. The Warrens recognize the crisis and are calling churches to respond through the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. “I can’t think of anybody in the church community in the United States who would have a greater influence,” Day said. “As the Warrens show compassion for what’s happening, it will catch the attention of the faith community.”
And the response of American Christians is encouraging African churches to respond more boldly too.
Making disciples in Africa is a long-term commitment. “It’s going to take 20 years or more,” Day said. “You don’t disciple nations overnight. You plant the seeds – and the doors are open for us to do that.
“Africa is pleading with the faith-based community to help. We need to walk through the door. As early explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone said when leaving Africa, ‘I opened the door; now don’t let anybody shut it.’”
In addition to investing spiritually in Africa, Day is praying that the West will share its material wealth with poorer parts of the world. In Africa, a better infrastructure is needed to ensure adequate education and medical care – and developing that infrastructure will be expensive. “God’s plan was for us to be stewards over his creation,” Day said. “As a Christian, my wealth is his wealth. How does he want me to use it?
“Most Americans don’t have any idea of the poverty of the world. One sees so little about Africa – and, according to the IMF-World Bank, of the 38 nations worldwide classified as ‘heavily indebted countries,’ 32 are in Africa. My prayer is that Africa will not be the forgotten continent, but that those who have been blessed with wealth will step up and help.”
Day points out that much of the Church has thought of AIDS as God’s judgment on people for their behavior. “If anyone’s going to be judged, it’s us Christians,” Day said. “We have the answer. If we don’t step forward with it, we’re in error.”
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