God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

12/10/2009 • 12:53 am Comments Off on 10.12.2009 Long dinner

10.12.2009 Long dinner

Invite for dinner – and it turns out to be a very interesting and chatty evening – coming home after midnight does not happen that often. It is nice to sit and chat around a table not feeling the time going by… it’s always also a compliment for the hosts to have been able to bring interesting people around their table.
Slowly but surely people getting into holiday mood, and also we from HOPE Cape Town starting slowly to wind down the operations, from mid next week, most employees will take leave and quite some will also travel to see their extended families where ever they live.
Slowly but surely another year comes to an end – Christmas is almost in reach. It will be the first time to be without my “Heilig Abend” service on Christmas eve, one of the most important and most emotional services I had to celebrate while being the chaplain to the German-speaking Catholic Community. I will miss it – and lots of people have asked whether I would not be able to come back for this one time. My answer is always the same: No, it is not possible. If you are gone, you are gone. Sounds easy, isn’t so easy, but it is the right thing to do. I hope that the service held by a fellow colleague will be touching the lives of the many coming to this very special occasion.
Yesterday we also had our last management meeting of HOPE Cape Town and our last meeting with the Catholic Aids Network for this year. Things have been wrapped up and the rest will be on the agenda again in the coming year. One can sense the intensity of Cape Town at this time. Almost everybody is tense at that time of the year – because everybody wants everything possible to be done before mid December, before the Mother city falls into the holiday coma – only awaken again mid January. Cape Town is fun, so one says, but Cape Town is also stress – because things are not done constantly, but at certain times of the year. And November till mid December is one of the most busy time – the summer holidays well deserved – for all but the priests, who have to work over the festive season… 😦 But I know from own experience that in between all the festive days there is also enough time for us clergy to rest a bit…,  so no complains but anticipation of this mixture of work and pleasure time for all of us in one of the greatest cities of the world: Cape Town 🙂

Filed under: General, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

12/05/2009 • 7:06 pm Comments Off on 05.12.2009 visitor…

05.12.2009 visitor…

Friday’s FIFA draw brought a lot of visitors to Cape Town. Before the draw I had the pleasure to meet with The Begum Aga Khan, who also happens to be the patron of the Berlin AIDS Gala. As HOPE Cape Town benefits from the Berlin AIDS Gala, the Princess wanted to see the project and we spend more than 2 hours at Tygerberg Children’s Hospital where she was introduced to the project and its work. She came in touch with our little patients and their parents and could get first hand experience about the consequences of the pandemic. The kids were also excited to get also an early Christmas…

Such visits are very important, do I feel every time with such a visitor, that I fulfill my purpose: being a bridge between different worlds and trying to help to understand each other. And it is ont only a one-way road. For many patients it is also a very first opportunity to come in close contact with Europeans, their thinking and their habits. Such a visit, well prepared, serves all parties. But I must add that we from HOPE Cape Town never put up a “programme” – no singing, dancing, saying a poem. We are not producing a show and when I hear of or have to attend such a ‘show’ it leaves always a bitter taste. Life as it is, that is what visitors, dignities, officials or Mr. Mustermann should touch and feel and smell and taste. Nothing more. Life is so exciting, one does not need show in such an environment. For this, Artscape or any other theater is a the right place.

Well, the visit went very well and we will meet again in Berlin @ the Berlin AIDS Gala 2010. I am looking forward to it and I know, that a further piece of South African reality will be present there next year. So, not only for some soccer teams, but also for HOPE Cape Town was the 4.12. a good day.

Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, , , ,

12/04/2009 • 3:27 pm 1

04.12.2009 Small and big donations…

In a recent email I was advised that my blog contains sometimes too much about big events raising money for HOPE Cape Town and obviously as a consequence  too little about the small events and the single donors. And reading the remarks I must admit: Yes, one hears definitely more about major fundraiser events and almost nothing about Mr X or Mrs Z.

For me it was and is always clear that there is no “big” or “small” sponsor per se – every Cent, every Rand counts and makes the life of another needy person better. Everybody contributing to HOPE Cape Town does whatever he or she is able or willing to do – and that is in every case highly appreciated by us from HOPE Cape Town. We have once off donations, regular monthly donations, donations resulting from weddings, funerals, birthdays or bigger events. In every case there is a thoughtful mind behind it, a great intention – a willing mind to see the need of others and act on it. Every Cent, every Rand is a gift, a miracle – and we are grateful.

Surely on a blog, one reflects on the days events – and bigger events have more exposure – because I am involved more time wise and I reflect on my work and my involvement or what comes to my mind seeing a situation.

I also donate ones in a while – for different causes; give here and there and it is never mentioned anywhere – but I never had the feeling of being a second class donor – the opposite is the case: do I read about somebody given for the same cause much more, I feel joy that others have the same ideas, find the same important and add to it.
Obviously, there must be a recognition – we from HOPE Cape Town have published in the last years on our website always all names we have had on our sponsor list – I admit that nothing is 100% perfect and we do miss out names; we try to send out a thank you letter every year to those, whose address we have (and given the SA post office – some got surely lost in transit) – in other words: we try our best to recognise everybody as much as we can.

Improvement is always possible – if readers have ideas about the balance of recognition between small and big donations – please let me know: I am eager to learn.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, , , , , ,

12/01/2009 • 10:05 pm Comments Off on 01.12.2009 World AIDS Day..

01.12.2009 World AIDS Day..

It doesn’t matter where I look, it is obvious: it is World AIDS Day and it seems everybody is on this day aware of the pandemic and it’s consequences. Even our president Jacob Zuma – he will go for a test, he vows to treat all children tested positive from April next year, statistics are run up and down in all newspapers – every bit of good news are squized again and again – the challenges mentioned – and somehow I think it is every year the same for one day.. and then it ceases again – and the lives of the millions of people infected and affected is shelved again until next year same time. One could be cynical about it, if there wouldn’t be hope – or HOPE.. 🙂

Here in Cape Town, the FIFA draw on Friday overshadows anyhow the World AIDS Day – streets are closed, traffic jams, police helicopters all day long, a city preparing for another special day where the world will be watching what is happening at the convention centre of the mother city. All over the city workers trying to finish off for the big draw – and then, for the next half a year, soccer will rule South Africa and everything else has to wait until August 2010.

I am just coming back from a reception marking 100 years of South African – Japanese relationship – and one can see the typical Cape Town syndrome beginning of December: Everybody somehow tired from the rush of November – the hectic of all-has-to-be-done until the summer holidays arrive in a couple of days.  My little success today was just to get the internet up and running again – the second time in two weeks that the line collapses and the reason is clear now: Telkom sells an ADSL speed which are too fast for the old lines… 🙂 also a way to make business..  Now the speed is down again and the line stable and up again….

Also with HOPE Cape Town we are short before the holiday season starts for most of our employees. We still got some visitors on our list until mid December, so enough to prepare and time is flying. I must admit that I am also happy if it all slows down a bit for the festive season. This year was an amazing one and I have seen the best and the worst from church colleagues, I have been trapped in empty promises and saw myself almost at the end of my church career, my life has been turned up side down so many times at will of other people, and now, at the end it looks like the uneven lines of life are leading to a years end with the promise of meaningful work for the years to come. It almost sounds like a years end blog, but all the traffic and times of stop and go are ideal times for reflection of past and present times. The rest of my thoughts then at the year’s end blog.. but it might well be only in the new year… Then New Years Eve this year, I will celebrate in Thailand – and I am sure I  will be out of the streets to celebrate with the crowd on the streets of Bangkok.  It is one of the last festive times, I never had the time to celebrate in the East, so I am looking forward to it. But before still some hard work – and some sleep. 🙂

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , ,

11/28/2009 • 2:34 am Comments Off on 28.11.2009 Malicious journalism and great AGM’s

28.11.2009 Malicious journalism and great AGM’s

Giving interviews is always tricky in our days – and when the topic is HIV and AIDS and the newspaper is a Catholic one, even more. I had in Munich a lengthy interview with the LinzerKirchenzeitung – and the interviewer really did a great job. Obviously the “condom question” was prominent – again, but I felt that I really tried to be as detailed and balanced as possible. Those who are able to read German can read the excerpt under http://www.dioezese-linz.or.at/redaktion/index.php?action_new=Lesen&Article_ID=51939

This morning I find an article about the article on “kath.net” under the headline: “Kondom Theologie in der Linzer Kirchenzeitung” (Condom theology in the Catholic newspaper of Linz – in German language). Reading this vile concoction I suddenly realise that I could have put it in the interview in any form – it would not matter at all. Here are people writing, who simply want to slate someone, in this case me. Anything goes, as long as at the end, the person concerned is put down. I feel ashamed that this is labeled “Catholic news. I would expect more from real Catholic news…  Love, respect and fairness are important virtues of Catholic journalism. This morning I find an article about the article on “kath.net” under the headline:

This afternoon then our two General Annual Meetings, first for the HOPE Cape Town Association and then for the HOPE Cape Town Trust. I must admit that afterwards I am really a happy man. Both AGM’s have been inspiring, a good motivation for the coming year. Dedicated trustees who want to get involved in the fundraising efforts and so adding to the work of HOPE Cape Town. One can sense that there is a good spirit amongst all of us and that the goodwill will go the extra mile to achieve the goals of HOPE Cape Town for the next years. It is indeed a pleasure to be part of such a project. And listening to the chairwoman’s report of the association, it amazes me anew, how diverse our work is. Running with it daily one sometimes tends to forget and miss the sheer bandwidth of our work.

I also want to use this blog to thank all of management, the employees, the trustees, the members of the advisory board, the sponsors and donors and friends of HOPE Cape Town for their dedication and for most I can say, for their friendship. My fellow management members I want to say a special thank you for the unique ways, we work together. It is not always easy with all the unique characters we have :-), but after 8 years one can sense that feel of belonging and appraisal for each other. For me, HOPE Cape Town is part of my family.

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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