PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Imagine being the manager of religious broadcasts for a national broadcast service where it is predicted one-half of your listeners will be dead within 10 years.
That's one-half of a nation of 1.6 million persons, many of them Lutherans. Forecasts project "a dramatically high death toll from AIDS and related complications," said the Rev. Nathan Kapofi, an executive of the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation. Hardly any families have been spared the agony of AIDS. In the midst of a living plague, Kapofi's daily challenge is to plan how to broadcast the "Good News" to a young nation.
It is a dramatically different challenge than what Namibia faced just 20 years ago, when AIDS was unknown and Namibia was striving for independence from its servitude as a colony of South Africa. Kapofi told his story during a recent visit to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, one of eight seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He graduated from the school in 1989.
How did it get this bad? "Many of our people have been in denial about this epidemic," Kapofi said. "The church preaches abstinence and promotes sexual purity and being faithful to one marriage partner. But it is difficult to maintain such values in a climate of much alcohol abuse and illiteracy. Our plight is heartbreaking," he said. Ninety-three percent of the population of Namibia is Christian.
While the broadcasting service Kapofi helps to manage is state-run, the government is highly sympathetic to religious broadcasting. Broadcasts are in nine languages and the programming includes worship services, devotional programs and counseling programs for all ages, including shows directed to youth, married couples, older persons and shut-ins. Christian education is also a focus of some broadcasts, Kapofi said.
"With such an (AIDS) epidemic, we constantly air information on the status of the illness," Kapofi said. "We teach people who are well how to avoid contracting AIDS, and for people with the illness we broadcast a message of hope about a loving God -- and, when people die, we bury them and console our listeners. Right now many victims are beginning to tell their stories to others, and that is helping in the job of education we must do if lives are to be saved."
Kapofi said 98 percent of the nation listens to the national broadcasts, which cover 95 percent of Namibia's terrain.
What can North Americans do about the plight of the young African nation?
"First, we ask for prayers," Kapofi said, "prayers that our people will practice abstinence from alcohol and practice safe sex." In the future, supplies such as food and diapers and the labors of volunteers may be welcome, he said, but at this stage, Namibia is struggling over how to channel and administer resources that could come its way.
"The process of educating and training people to deal with this crisis is very demanding," he said. ---
*Mark A. Staples is director of communication and public information at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.
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