Southland Christian Church Outreach: Responding to HIV/AIDS and World Hunger
Southland Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, outlines how it responds to the enormous challenges of HIV/AIDS and world hunger. The article describes contributing factors behind these crises and explains how the church partners globally and serves locally to help break generational cycles of need.
- HIV/AIDS and hunger are intertwined challenges, often fueled by overlapping root causes.
- Southland partners with trusted organizations to provide care, support, and prevention strategies.
- The church also pursues local outreach through schools, nonprofits, and future health clinics.
By Mark Perraut
Southland Christian Church
Lexington, Kentucky
Understanding the Roots of HIV/AIDS and Hunger
The statistics are staggering, and the stories are overwhelming and heart-wrenching. The issues of HIV/AIDS and world hunger are so enormous we wonder how we can help at all. In order to start to help, we must understand the causes of these modern-day plagues and discover ways to break the generational cycle.
Contributing factors of the HIV/AIDS pandemic include poverty, war, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the lack of adequate health care. In Africa 3 million children under the age of 15 are infected with HIV/AIDS. As many as 12 million African children have lost one or both parents to AIDS.
Many of the causes of HIV/AIDS also are causes of world hunger. According to Food for the Hungry’s statistics, more people have died from hunger-related causes in the past five years than in all the wars, revolutions, and murders in the past 150 years. Most of these fatalities are children—up to 24,000 every day.
How Southland Works Globally
At Southland Christian Church, Lexington, Kentucky, we approach these issues in two ways. First, we work toward a global impact by partnering with organizations like Food for the Hungry and CMF International—groups with proven strategies to help alleviate the problems today and prevent them in the future. Programs include home-based care and counseling for those with HIV/AIDS, support for orphans and vulnerable children, and promotion of abstinence and marital faithfulness as ways to prevent HIV/AIDS. In 2006 these initiatives touched more than 110,000 children, men, and women in Africa.
In Mozambique, Southland works in a church-strengthening program to help teach the people to grow and maintain sustainable food while they receive their daily bread, the love of Jesus Christ. The program also includes pastor and leader training. The ultimate goal is for people to build a personal relationship with the Lord.
Local Outreach in Lexington
Southland also works locally through its Circles of Influence program. This initiative reaches out to local schools, supports local nonprofit organizations, and will even open health clinics to serve those in need.
One of Southland’s core values is “All believers are commanded to use their influence in the world for Christ.” We seek to fulfill this by building relationships with those in need.
