One year ago the Canadian Medical Association presented Winnipeg physician Allan R. Ronald with its highest honour—the F.N.G. Starr Award, which has been described as the “Victoria Cross of Canadian Medicine.” In 1994 he received the Order of Canada.

The citation from the CMA is telling. “Already retired from an enviable 30-year career as a researcher and teacher at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Ronald accepted one of the most daunting challenges in medicine. He joined Africa’s first large HIV/AIDS clinic in Kampala, Uganda...assuming duties to work with Ugandan colleagues to develop programs for training, care, research and prevention.”

Ronald was a natural for the position. His track record as an AIDS researcher in Africa was already well-established. Indeed, an article I wrote for this newspaper back in 1987 described Ronald as “on the cutting edge of AIDS research.”

As it happened, a clinical investigative unit he set up in Kenya in 1980 was ideally placed to produce some extremely important data for understanding how HIV was spreading in a developing country. By 1987 Ronald, who grew up in a Christian Brethren home, had earned the respect of his colleagues for his lobbying efforts to find funds for AIDS programs in Africa.

Last month the good doctor lent his efforts and prestige to bring the message of AIDS awareness and action to the broader church community. Some 16 organizations took part in a two-day conference that brought AIDS workers and African church and health officials together with Canadian church-goers in order to provide opportunities for people who care to become involved in meaningful ways.

New ground
The conference broke new ground, providing a grassroots impetus to a growing desire by Christians in North America to address the devastating pandemic. In many places throughout the world, says Ronald, churches are “often accused of being ineffective and judgmental” and Christians are apt to “excuse themselves” because of their own fears.

But “we must be involved. We must be aware of the suffering around the world,” he continues. “The church has to be involved on the frontlines of this battle.”

And a battle it certainly is. The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (www.lausanne.org) recently called HIV/AIDS “the greatest humanitarian emergency in the history of the human family.” The statistics are numbing: some 40 million people infected with the virus; almost 8,000 people died of AIDS every day in 2003; 92,000 people infected every week; an AIDS orphan created every 14 seconds in Africa; 70 million people will die of AIDS by 2020.

The Lausanne group reports that the center of gravity of the pandemic is Africa. “The pandemic has been raging for over 20 years, while most of the world has slept. African pastors are burying people every day of every week; they are in the burial business. Many of those impacted by HIV/AIDS are our sisters and brothers in the Lord.

“We are at the beginning of the pandemic, not the middle nor the end. Africa is only the first wave of an emerging global pandemic. China, India, and Russia—home to almost one-third of the world’s population—have growing HIV prevalence rates and poor prevention efforts that could lead them to the situation in which Africa now finds herself.

“Many African churches have taken the lead in responding in prevention and care. A few Asian churches are doing the same. Churches in other parts of the world have been slower to respond. What is missing is global commitment on the part of all evangelicals to provide what God has given them to the fight against this scourge,” states Lausanne’s Holistic Mission Study group.

They go on to remind us that “if the evangelical church cares for the sick and the dying, comforts the orphan and widow, shares its message of redemption and transformation, disciples its members, and works for justice, then the worth and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ will shine like a light on the hill and the nations will stream toward it.”

This message is finally beginning to get through to Christians in North America, and leaders like Ronald are helping to show the rest of us how to bring what we have to the enormous task at hand.