The Catskill Chronicle

Rev. Kit Robinson, pastor of the First Grace Lutheran Parish in Jeffersonville, lights several candles during the vigil.

Story and photos by Ted Waddell

JEFFERSONVILLE – Sometimes one voice speaks for millions.

On Saturday night, December 5, the First Grace Lutheran Church of Jeffersonville held a World AIDS Day ecumenical service and candlelight vigil to raise awareness of the international pandemic and in Rev. Kit Robinson’s words, “Remember those who have lost and those who continue to fight.”

Based upon UNAIDS estimates, there are currently 33.4 million people living with AIDS across the globe, including 2.1 million children. In 2007, a reported 2 million lives were lost, including 270,000 kids.

Lynn Reno of Jeffersonville remembered a friend lost to HIV/AIDS in October.

At the local candlelight ceremony, in addition to the pastor’s family and a friend of the church, only one person walked through the doors of the parish to remember a friend who died of AIDS in October.

“I wanted to come to the vigil to pay my respects to a friend who lived  with HIV for 20 years and who just passed away,” said Lynn Reno of  Jeffersonville. “I think we could be could be much farther along helping individual people with HIV if we could let go of the shame and the stigma attached to it,” she added, in essence serving as one lonely voice speaking for a million and a half people living with HIV/AIDS around the world.

Rev. Robinson was joined in the parish candlelight vigil by his wife Christa, their two daughters, Heather, 9, and 16-year old Stephany, along with Catherine Scott of Hortonville, a friend of the church who last year suggested the idea of holding an AIDS Day remembrance at the local parish.

Rev. Robinson said the AIDS Day ceremony was appropriate due to area’s significant gay population and the fact that he offers support to a few folks living with HIV/AIDS. “There are a couple of people I know who have HIV and one guy who has AIDS,” he said. “I don’t even think about it any more, it’s all par of my calling…they have spiritual needs, and that’s why I’m here.”

Christa Robinson is a student nurse, and over the past year and a half, has worked with three AIDS patients, along the dispelling a lot of perceived notions about the disease. “I’m not bleeding, they’re not bleeding, we’re okay.”

Scott said that while attending the local community college, she wrote a couple of papers on HIV/AIDS for Professor Tom Russell’s class. “AIDS is something that affects all of us even if we don’t know anybody with it,” she said. “It doesn’t know any race, any gender, any age…it has no boundaries or countries. There is no longer a face of AIDS, [and] we have become very apathetic, there is a lack of education as to how AIDS is spread.”

“We talk about pregnancy in this country, but we don’t talk about how AIDS is spread…there is no adoption fix for HIV, how sad is that?,” added Scott.

Rev. Kit Robinson, pastor of the First Grace Lutheran Parish of Jeffersonville had a power-point presentation about World AIDS Day 2009.

World AIDS Day was conceived in August 1987 by James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, two public information officers (PIO) for the Global Programme on AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva Switzerland. Since then, December 1 has been recognized as World AIDS Day, and since 1995 the President of the United States has issued an official proclamation on World AIDS Day.

In his proclamation dated November 25, 2009 President Barack Obama said, “Our nation joins the world in celebrating the extraordinary advancements we have made in the battle against HIV and AIDS, and remembering those we have lost.”

“Over the past three decades, brave men and women have fought devastating discrimination, stigma, doubt, and violence as they stood in the face of this deadly disease…On World AIDS Day, we rededicate ourselves to developing a national AIDS strategy that will establish the priorities necessary to combat this devastating epidemic at home, and to renewing our leadership role and commitments abroad.”

“Though we have been witness to incredible progress, our struggle against HIV/AIDS is far from over. With an infection rate occurring every nine-and-half minutes in America, there are more than one million individuals estimated to be living with the disease in our country. Of those currently affected, one in five does not know they have the condition, and the majority of new infections are spread by people unaware of their own status.”

“HIV/AIDS does not discriminate as it infiltrates neighborhoods and communities,” added President Obama. “Americans of any gender, age, ethnicity, income, or sexual orientation can be and are contracting the disease…While the statistics are distressing, new medications and scientific advancements have given us hope.”

A lit candle remembers “those who have lost and those who continue to fight.

AIDS has taken the lives of more than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which became operational in 1996 after taking over the planning and promotion of World AIDS Day.

The theme of the first Worlds AIDS Day of 1988 was “Communication”, and for each World AIDS Day from 2005 through 2010, the theme is “Stop AIDS,. Keep the Promise”, along with a yearly sub-theme, which for 2009 is  “Universal Access and Human Rights”, as violations against human rights help spread HIV/AIDS, as marginalized groups such as IV drug users and sex workers are put at a higher risk of infection.

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