|
Today John Mayombwe celebrates his 15th anniversary with HIV.
The thirty-four year old Ugandan commemorates the occasion with friend and co-worker Kathleen Burns in a hotel lobby. Over a cup of coffee and slice of cake, he talks candidly about how he destroyed his life.
“I slept with a girl when I was 14" John's father, a wealthy insurance executive, taught his son how to party at a young age. In his early teens John accompanied his father to bars and nightclubs, mingling among Uganda's elite.
“I slept with a girl [for the first time] when I was 14,” he remembers.
The hedonism continued through his teens when John heard rumours of life aboard the Ssese Islands. Girls were leaving the mainland in droves, overcoming poverty as bartenders and prostitutes. At 17 John got a job in the island government because he spoke good English. As a pseudo customs authority, he granted women permission to settle on the islands— if they had sex with him first.
 John Mayombwe
John considered himself a fairly lucky man until one day, while spending some time at home, his father confided some shattering news. “I’m HIV+,” he said. “Beware of girls."
“You’re late,” John responded. He says he had already slept with over 20 women.
Over the next few months, John watched his father waste away. He dreaded getting tested himself-- but ignorance certainly wasn’t bliss. So one day John numbed himself with alcohol before walking into a local clinic. He tested positive.
John says he kept sleeping around. No-one suspected a thing-- until a terrible rash broke out on his legs.
“My skin flaked like ashes,” he says. John, like his father before him, spent all his money on ineffective medication. He tried to hide his legs under long pants, but recalls the night he drunkenly removed them in front of a former girlfriend. "My skin flaked like ashes”
“She cried,” John remembers. She committed suicide the same night, fearing she too had the dreaded disease.
“John,” she had said as he walked out of her apartment. “They told me [you had AIDS] but I didn’t believe…”  Today John works with nurse
Kathleen Burns to help treat AIDS
sufferers with anti-retrovirals while
counselling patients to seek ultimate
healing in Jesus Christ.
John's hatred for himself increased with the disease. By the time he met AIM missionary Steve Wolcott, he was barely able to walk.
John asked Wolcott why he should believe the “Good News” when missionaries were ignoring the people's basic needs. Wolcott returned to the island several days later with a creamy paste for John’s leg. It worked! And for John, this was miraculous proof that God cared for him.
“I bought a Bible...I looked behind at how many people died because of me,” he says.
“I asked God to take control.”
Mildmay, Kampala's premier AIDS treatment centre, has acknowledged AIM's role in reaching remote AIDS sufferers. Though the Ssese islands are outside Mildmay's working area, the centre provides free healthcare to thousands of Ssese islanders.John left his lucrative job and began serving alongside Wolcott in island evangelism. Today he volunteers as a health worker alongside Nurse Kathleen Burns. Because he lives with AIDS himself, his message of hope is especially poignant to fellow islanders.
“They are my brothers and sisters,” says John, a solemn look crossing his face. “My happiness is to see when people are getting OK.”
Back in the lobby, Burns encourages John to eat his cake. He ignores her, putting it in his pocket. It’s back to work—time to catch up patients in a depressing public hospital. Later he gives up his anniversary cake to a hungry patient.¤ |
