Poem for an HIV-positive mother

 Estonia | Anya Henderson wonders where hope lies

W

e met at the hospital. Lena (name is changed) was about to give birth to her third girl. She tried to sound like she had everything under control and that her husband - who, like her, was a client of a methadone program - is a good man and excellent father. So, she told me that she would make it. She knew that I knew about her HIV positive status.

The next day when I visited, she was a different person. In fact, she called asking me to visit her. She had been crying since the doctors came by on their rounds that morning. She felt afraid and lost. Lena had stopped taking her medication and so she and her baby girl were at-risk. “Thank you for coming,” she said, as I finished our visit with prayer. “Now, I feel like I am not so alone.”

Lena’s doctor was happy for the support The Salvation Army would be giving to her following her transfer from the hospital.  They were anticipating complications following the birth. The child would suffer withdrawal pain, because Lena had been using methadone throughout her pregnancy. After the successful caesarean-section birth and a longer than usual recovery period, we helped Lena to get home. Within three weeks she had started to attend the church. Yet, through all this she could not break her drug dependency and would attempt to manipulate our friendship in order to obtain drugs.

Where is hope? We have hope that she will one day see that our friendship and care will give her and her girls more than drugs ever could. We have hope that one day she will summon the courage to choose her own life and that of her babies, over the lies she habitually tells in order to maintain her addiction. We have hope because Christ will compel me to keep on going to their house and play with girls and change their diapers and refuse to break relationship with Lena regardless of her behaviour. One day she will be clean enough to see how much God loves her through us at The Salvation Army. That is where hope lies.

For the HIV positive mother of three little girls

Remember how pleasant it is
to sleep with the newborn child?

How wonderful it is to breathe in his aroma?
and the unforgettable softness of his skin?

That’s how pleasant it is for your soul
to find rest under Jesus’ hand.

Your soul is capable of reaching for His reliable palm,
If you just let yourself stop your mad run to the edge.

And make a step to Him, who loves you…
He never tires of waiting for you.

 

January 16, 2008

Writer: Anya Henderson (nee Marakulina) was born in 1975 in the Soviet Union. She was enrolled as a “pioneer” in 1985, which meant that she promised, “to love her country passionately, to live, to learn and to work as the great Lenin wished, as taught by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union”.  In 1992 Anya was saved in The Salvation Army and she made a new covenant, this time with God, to fight as a true soldier of Jesus Christ. In 2001 Anya was commissioned as an officer in the Western Territory of USA. In 2002, Anya and her husband Daniel opened The Salvation Army Narva Corps (Russian ministry) in Estonia, where they presently serve along with their five children: Isaiah, Sofia, Anyuta, Iliya, and Mark.  She enjoys the challenge of balancing the needs of ministry and family!

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