The following letter was written by Chuck MacDonald, parishioner and homily speaker of August 20th, 2000. The letter was sent to those who gave financial support to help members from the Twin Cities Open Arms Organization attend the XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. Chuck agreed to publish his personal letter on our website to further clarify the message from his homily. -Editor

Dear Friends,

Several months ago I took a major life risk and wrote a letter asking for financial help to attend the XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. All of you were generous and I knew that for many the financial help was given not to me - but so that somehow you could help with what many are calling the worse pandemic disaster since slavery. I am now writing to try to tell you, as best I can - that your support did make a difference.

In part what happened was the world press anticipated Durban as a possible site for protest or trouble. So the press came in great numbers to get a story. The story very dramatically changed, and the very presence of over 11,000 doctors, nurses, health care and social workers, volunteers and many HIV and AIDS victims produced a militancy and sense of urgency unlike anything seen in the world of AIDS since the discovery of the disease. Because of your help, I was one of those 11,000 who flooded into Durban, South Africa, and a country where 1 in 5 adults is infected with HIV. I like all the others was part of the great dialogue that helped to get the drug companies and first world countries to see that the silence of this growing disaster had to be broken.

I was witness and participant in a story of epic proportions because of your support, so I am writing the rest of this letter in the role of a storyteller...

There have been proud moments in my life and standing shoulder to shoulder with my South African, German and American friends at the opening ceremony of this conference was one of them. For two weeks of my life only good things happened and because of repeated accidental meetings with people we kept finding ourselves in the very center of things. I had supper one evening with representatives of one of the largest drug companies. I talked to doctors from all over the world, I listened to unbelievable stories of heroic service from care givers, and daily I ate with and spoke with those who have HIV and AIDS.

Opening night I sat eight rows from the President of South Africa; Thabo Mbeki and listened to his controversial speech. The pageantry of a massive chorus of 300 South African women dazzled me; the drumming in a breathtaking display of talent brought a massive audience to its feet. At the end of the week I sat with two American friends in quiet awe to listen to the strong voice of a Nelson Mandela once again plead for his people. When this great man walked into the auditorium or public place, South African's rose and sang to him and then the entire audience became strangely quiet so as not to miss his words. "We have to rise above our differences and combine our efforts to save our people. History will judge us harshly if we fail to do so now, and right now. Aids in Africa was claiming more lives that the sum total of wars, famines and floods, and the ravages of other deadly diseases " - Nelson Mandela

The story of a journey to South Africa did not start with the spectacular opening night ceremonies but the week before in Cape Town. We had all agreed that we needed to be informed and to see for ourselves and learn as much as we could before the conference. Cape Town was again accidentally chosen because we could get flights there and one person had a contact. The one contact led to several others. My first view of Africa was at 7:30 on a beautiful Sunday morning. We stepped off a plane and within moments I knew all the tour books had been right in saying that if you visit only one place in South Africa, make it Cape Town. It is sheltered beneath the familiar shape of Table Mountain and few cities in the world possess its beauty and style. If you climb to the top of Table Mountain by cable car, as we did, you can see a city of splendor and two oceans. We were so energized by it all that even after 15 hours of flying from Atlanta everyone voted to drive to the Cape of Good Hope for a late lunch at 2:00. I began to sense then that in the days that would follow, I would dream of down time but not ever experience it.

Sunday evening was spent in the company of two men who truly were our transformational guides and mentors in Cape Town. Both men had been awarded presidential honors from Mandela himself for the work they did in the townships. One was Ian, a white Afrikaner and university professor. The other was a black South African Presbyterian minister whose ministry was in the midst of 330,000 people of the township of Gugiletu, the Rev. Dr. Spiwo Xapile. It was Sister Joanne Lucid and Spiwo who arranged for drivers and cars to shuttle us everywhere for the days that followed.

Monday was grim and one of the hardest days of my life. The others and I were introduced into unbelievable sorrow and anguish as we drove just north of the city to the townships. There is no preparation for stepping into one of the hospices started by Mother Theresa and her sisters, There is no way life prepares you to walk through gates into a world of sick men, women and children that have been abandoned by all. The first Aids victim I talked to of the very first day of the very first hour was a 50 year old man called Abdul. He was a Moslem from Uganda. Somehow he had wandered south and was found on the streets, so they took him to the Sisters of Charity. He had watched all 14 members of his family butchered in front of him as part of the genocide of the mid 90's. He escaped the first hell to face the second, dying of Aids. He spoke excellent English and singled me out to talk to, so we sat in the morning sun and talked about the fear of not dying in one's sleep. Awake, Abdul could only experience waves of grief and to die in his sleep, was an escape. The morning got worse. We drove to the place called Beautiful Gates where they have the little children with AIDS. It reminded me somewhat of Beth's school (Chuck’s wife Beth MacDonald is the owner, President, prime force and imagination behind MacDonald Montessori School in St. Paul). Bright colors and toys and like Beth's school, there were lots of smiling photographs of beautiful children on the wall. Then my eyes looked closer at these smiling photos of the children and I saw at the bottom was marked with their date of birth and death.

From the moment my friend had suggested that I join Kevin (Kevin Winge is the Director of Open Arms and Chuck’s co-speaker at mass. Open Arms is an organization providing meals to individuals confined at home with HIV and Aids) and the others on this trip to South Africa, during all the months of planning, and every other hour that I was there, I kept asking why I was part of this journey. It was Spiwo who gave me part of an answer I could accept. It was Spiwo who led us into the townships and hospices and orphanages. It was Spiwo who walked us into streets of despair and then to pockets of hope. It was Spiwo who showed us the women weavers and the pottery makers and then marched us back to the streets of township and into a nightmare of almost a million people trapped in South Africa's grinding poverty and unemployment and now sickness. It was always Spiwo with whom I spent a great deal of time that kept me focused. Spiwo would say, "Chuck, you look around you and say what is the use, or you can say, I can at least do one thing. If you help even one person with something, it gives them strength. We' re not bitter, the bitterness will not help us - we must try to move on and find ways to help by working together "

For four days we shuttled back and forth from a beautiful city to the townships and the hospices and orphanages. One day Spiwo gathered several of his people to meet us in the late afternoon, a few were very sick with Aids and he wanted us to listen to them because he knew that if they could tell their story to someone it would help. "Chuck, always remember everyone wants someone to know that they lived and somehow mattered. People come here and they think that they have to have expertise, but I say to you, all you have to do is be here for awhile with us and listen to us. Your coming has given us strength."

When we drove back to the city it was in silence. On Thursday evening Ian and Spiwo came to the hotel for a late supper because we were flying to Durban the next day. Spiwo who sat next to me at table and we talked for a long time about some of his people and their stories; Robbie, Christopher, Veronica and all the others trapped in the townships. When I flew home a week later, I had met many, many people from everywhere but I carried in my wallet only one card and that was of Rev. Dr. Spiwo Xapile.

Durban was another experience. It had dressed itself up for this onslaught of 11,000 visitors. We all were given beautiful red African backpacks and wore beaded AIDS ribbons and large identification badges. Security was extremely tight; A deal had been struck between the four of us that the others would attend the workshops and I would run the AIDS Nutrition Service Alliance; (ANSA) booth. ANSA represents 90 organizations around the United States that offer food or nutrition services to HIV/AIDS clients. Kevin Winge who is the Executive Director of Open Arms, and the inspiration for this trip is also on the ANSA board. ANSA had contacted Kevin at the last minute. They wanted to have a presence in Durban, and Kevin agreed to get the booth up, and I agreed to man it so that that the others could attend workshops. For four historical days, the others went to off to various workshops and discussions, and I literally sat or stood in a booth and met the world. Every two minutes it was another person from another country talking to me - the make-believe nutritional expert.

I know it sounds weird, but in a third world country I was an expert and Kevin had briefed me on the plane and most of the time I did the listening. Hey I was a hit. We did have fruit and hard candy at the booth and Open Arms tee shirts and we were Americans -so I was a novelty act. The tee shirts were part of the draw and my first official business was to exchange tee shirts with two Russians. For four days I would get up and run to the market to get fruit and candy and hit the booth for another day of high drama. Sometimes I laughed with my visitors; sometimes I cried. A South African man named Charles who was very sick with Aids would come in the morning and have breakfast with me. I would give him some money and he would go get coffee and something for him and we would sit and talk. Charles knew he is dying and on the final day he asked if I would adopt his sons. I thought of the words to that song the woman sang the night of the opening ceremonies. "The future isn't what it use to be." In Cape Town I saw a world of sorrow and suffering. In Durban I met so many people whose lives were about trying to help, 11,000 men and women who cared and who had come from everywhere to make a difference.

The trip to South Africa has many, many more stories, a book full. In two incredible weeks of life, I stood on top of a mountain, at the tip of a continent where two oceans meet, I saw great and beautiful things, I listened to a great man plead once again for his people, stood in his cell on Robbins Island, and in sad silence in the Apartheid Museum in Cape town. But most of all I listened to so many men and women tell me their stories, and so many people touch my hand or arm and thank me because I came to sit and listen. Because of your help I did make a small difference.

When I returned the first days were very hard to get through. We came back on a Sunday and I tried to work on Wednesday. Thursday morning I sat in my office fighting off emotional fatigue and feeling very overwhelmed. Then I looked up and saw that there was a message on my computer. The message was from Rev. Spiwo and it simply said "Ian and I are coming to the United States in November, there is a meeting in Atlanta and we have decided to come to Minneapolis, we want to see you again."

Thanks sincerely to all of you who helped make this journey possible. I hope that what you gave to the cause did make some difference. Several of you have asked what will happen next. On October 15th of this year, Chuck MacDonald will travel back to Cape Town with Kiersten Chace from Carrousel Travel. Kiersten had led us to Reverend Spwio and she had made it possible for us to meet many people of the townships. Our purpose is to spend more time with Spiwo and his people to learn all we can, and to meet with the others who are trying to help. We will travel into the rural areas of South Africa but most importantly we will spend time with Spiwo to build an alliance that may give some help to his people and the difficult choices that are being asked to make.

If you want to help this alliance to help the AIDS victims of South Africa, contact Chuck MacDonald at chuckmacdonald@uswest.net or kiersten@carrouseltravel.com . If you would like to volunteer at Open Arms of Minnesota, call 612.872.1152

Chuck MacDonald
July, 20, 2000