2007 Honorable Mention
Swaziland Reformed
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Recognized as a local church located in the heart of the pandemic that has created a model for caring for people affected and infected by AIDS in their community that is transferable to other churches needing to do the same. |
Name and location: Swaziland Reformed Church, Piet Retief, South Africa
Denomination: Swaziland Reformed Church
Pastor: Dr. Arnau Van Wyngaar
Date Founded: 1945
Total Church Membership: 1,500
Website: www.swazimission.co.za
Outstanding Involvement and Effectiveness in the Fight Against AIDS:
Inspired by God’s instruction that “You must become the hands and the feet of Christ in your local community,” Pastor Van Wyngaar and the members of the Swaziland Reformed Church commissioned its first group of 36 volunteers to embark on a home-based care program for local residents suffering from AIDS in January 2006. The project focused on one community, Dwaleni (English translation: “the place of the rock”), for its first year. Since then, the Shislweni Reformed Home-Based Care program has expanded with more than 100 additional volunteers in four communities, with work planned in a fifth community. In total, more than $4,000 of the church’s annual budget of $11,000 is devoted to work with people affected by AIDS or infected with HIV.
Impact on the Congregation:
One unintended consequence of the church’s vision to become the hands and feet of Christ and its home-based care program is sustained growth in the number of members and attenders. Newcomers comment that they previously did not attend any church because they could not find one that both preached the Gospel and lived out its faith in the world.
Pastor’s Quote: “(Our story) has very little to do with courageous leadership. It has much to do with the gracious God who entrusted a gigantic task into the hands of a group of people who have often believed that they are too poor and too disadvantaged to make a difference. A vision grew within these people of a different Swaziland, where life will return to normal, where families will have a mother and a father and where nobody will need to suffer anymore.”
Comment from the Judges: “The burden of AIDS has been felt perhaps in no country more deeply than Swaziland. … Your work of gradually building appropriate care networks has resulted in thousands of others awakened and engaged in this health emergency. For this and the steadfast dedication you show to Christ and those you serve, we salute you.”
