God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

11/10/2009 • 8:33 am Comments Off on 10.09.2009 walls..

10.09.2009 walls..

Yesterday eve, after a day of deep tiredness and exhaustion I watched the ceremony in Berlin commemorating the 20th day of the fall of the Berlin wall. And looking at the pictures I asked myself how long it take for all the walls in our church to come down, the walls that people erect to protect their faith, not knowing what is still waiting for them if they would not see faith as something I can possess, but what I have to live and to develop every day.

I went to turbulent days the last days. Finding my feet again in Cape Town, starting the real process of farewell from “my” communities, sorting out all planing and prepare for the planing meeting today of HOPE Cape Town and HOPE Cape Town POZ,  and accompanying my colleague and successor in his quest to decide, whether he really wants to stay in Cape Town. Tough decisions to make and always to ask oneself, where God leads one and what is a blessing for oneself and for others. Life can appear to be very difficult at times. Well, we will see, what this day will bring…

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11/07/2009 • 12:19 am Comments Off on 07.11.2009 First day in office and a final letter …

07.11.2009 First day in office and a final letter …

A first day in office after all my travel, and as it is almost every time the case, first one has to sort out all the papers brought with me from the trip – and just have a look through all mails, emails and requests waiting for my arrival.

It is a vast to-do-list I have made today – but I am sure when I work through Saturday and Sunday, I will be able to start fresh into the new week – at least almost fresh.. 🙂 There are so many encounters with people, I still have to work through, so many challenges and obviously a good time-table and organisation of work is a must.

Tuesday we will have HOPE Cape Town planing meeting – then I know better what kind of travel I will have next year – with the Okeumenischer Kirchentag in Munich, Vienna World AIDS Conference, Hope Gala Dresden and Berliner Aidsgala as well as the Bundespostivenkonferenz,  meetings regarding the Charite Exhibition and a further meeting in Rome with the papal council there seems to be lots of travel ahead. I hope that I am able to coop with all the demands. But the circle of friends of HOPE Cape Town is growing

Today, my previous headquarter of the Kath. Auslandssekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, the office dealing with the portfolio of German-speaking Catholic Communities, has given me notice, that they will cease taking donations for HOPE Cape Town. It seems that only the priest in the community counts – not the rest of the parish. The chairperson of the Pastoral Community Council is at the same time Chairperson of the HOPE Cape Town Association management – the project is not a “Stefan Hippler” initiative, but was an initiative out of the community – and HOPE Cape Town was until now a proud parent of HOPE Cape Town.

I will accept the ruling, why should I start arguing again – but I find it sad, that a clearly marked project which has identifiable links to the church and to the Cape Town German-speaking Catholic Community has now to rely on another way to channel the money and issue tax-deductible receipts. Thanks God I saw it come and the HOPE Kapstadt Stiftung can do all that in Germany. Nevertheless, I feel sad while another indication is sad, that personal dislikes of  one or two members of the Auslandssekretariats staff influence the donations stream for very needy people.

Evaluation of the higher legal interest would have done the trick.

But so, from February 2010 there will be no possiblity to send donation to HOPE Cape Town via the German Bishops Conference’s office of the Kath. Auslandssekretariat.

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

11/04/2009 • 9:30 pm Comments Off on 04.11.2009 Farewell thoughts

04.11.2009 Farewell thoughts

Sitting at Frankfurt airport I can feel the how tired I am and how much I am looking forward to sleep while flying back to Cape Town. I will be happy to be back home again.

For 16 days I toured through Germany with a detour to Rome, I have had meetings, planing workshop, planing meeting, one2one meetings, telephone meetings, talks – I saw round about a 1000 people in those days – statistics can be interesting. Plans are made until 2013 – I feel the manager syndrome arriving on my doorsteps, but I guess many people are telling me that since years. The Ecumenical church day, the world aids conference, the Bundespositivenkonferenz, the world awareness campaign part two, the exhibition at the Charite Museum, a film project, quite some invitations, amongst them to speak also about economy and ethics as well as how to achieve a value system for one’s own life, motivational talks – the visit of bishops to bring the idea of the pastoral care for positive clergy via bishops conferences to Rome – I am this evening indeed sure that there will be no dull moment in my life for the next years to come. And I thought it will take time to find enough work in my new working environment

HOPE Cape Town will be re-structured a bit – new offices, partly changed job descriptions – the Catholic Aids Networks registration as a NPO and PBO and I guess also there is some restructuring necessary – I still have to write a contribution to a book published by the University of Trier – writing down for me all the “still have to do” list is frightening and challenging at the same time. But I am in a good spirit that all can be done, seeing all the marvellous colleagues giving a hand and taking a lead with me.

Next week we will have our management and planing meeting from HOPE Cape Town and then I will report back in detail and we will plan for the new year ahead. Despite my tiredness I can feel the dynamics of networking – the possibilities lying ahead and I once again don’t understand the stand of many NGO’s which are so protective of their work and see most others as competition rather than a completion to their own work. This year I have seen some naughty incidents were other NGO’s were not afraid to try to lure away sponsors on our very own events. There are still so many feathers to earn in South Africa – and there are also so many willing sponsors if you have a good programme – there is no need to fight each other for anything.

 

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

11/04/2009 • 11:27 am Comments Off on 04.11.2009 new pics from the HOPE Gala Dresden…

04.11.2009 new pics from the HOPE Gala Dresden…

and some new pics from the HOPE Gala Dresden 2009 – Enjoy

 

http://foto.pukmedia.eu/veranstaltungen/HOPE-Gala-2009/2009-10-31_23-09-11.jpg.html

Filed under: General, Networking, Uncategorized, , ,

11/04/2009 • 11:15 am 1

04.11.2009 Positive clergy

At the end of my stay in Germany I have had a meeting with a representative of the Archdiocese of Munich to discuss with him several matters. One was my request to the Archbishop of Munich to support my work in the fields of HIV/AIDS when it comes to priests, religious, clergy being positive. It is a tricky question but a very important one: how we deal with those amongst us, who are HIV positive.

I will visit in the near future some South African bishops as well to discuss this topic and to try to bring it to Rome. “It will raise some eyebrows”, so a member of the papal council for health care worker in Rome, but he also sees it as necessary to face this question. For me it has to do with justice within the church – all what we proclaim outside how to deal with people being HIV positive we must apply within the church. A long way to go, but all starts with the first mile. And I am grateful to all who are part of this new project.

www.hopecapetown.com/poz

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, Networking, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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