A worldwide problem...

I'm sure you've all seen the whole "you need to get an AIDS test" commercials on TV. First off, none of you guys better need an AIDS test... But secondly, do you really know how big this problem is?

Check out this quiz from World Vision to see how much you know. I promise, you'll be astounded.

All over the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, the AIDS problem is growing. Not only are more people becoming infected with HIV, which leads to AIDS, but more and more children are becoming orphans because of the disease. At the end of 2003, there were 12 million children who had lost one or both parents to the disease.

Let me put this into perspective:

Number of people living with HIV/AIDS globally:

38,000,000

Number of people who travel to Las Vegas every year:

35,000,000

You're probably saying, "Oh, they must have done something bad to have contracted HIV..." That is they way the American society has trained us to think. But check this out - out of the 38 million people with AIDS, about 50% of those are women. Some of them are drug users, and some are prostitutes, but some are just wives and moms who trusted their husband to be faithful. And obviously those husbands weren't very faithful. Many men in Africa have to work far away from home for long periods of time, because they live in a poverty stricken area and cannot feed their family where they are. While they are away, they might have sex with a prostitute who has AIDS, and then when they finally get back home, they give it to their wife. And then she gets pregnant and passes it on to her child. At no fault of her own. And certantly no fault of the children.

This is just the very tip of the problem. There is medicine, but no money to buy the meds... What do you do with all those orphans... and how do you cut down on transmission of the disease?

And what is the church doing about it? What can you do about it?

Check out what other teens are doing at World Vision's One Life Revolution.

Also check out these books. I've got them both if you want to check them out.

Mission: Africa
The AWAKE Project

Thanks for listening. We've gotta be aware of what's going on out there.