Immersion Experience to Central City Lutheran Mission
From January 15 – 19, 2010, 10 Lutheran college and seminary students, clergy and lay people participated in the first ever Lutheran AIDS Network immersion experience to Central City Lutheran Mission in San Bernardino, California.
During the immersion experience, participants lived in homestays with HIV-positive formerly homeless people, ate meals in a soup kitchen, learned more about the innovative work of Central City Lutheran Mission in responding to the needs of their community, heard presentations from HIV public health experts, learned more about the ELCA HIV and AIDS Strategy, and visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
For many participants, the homestays were the most powerful experience, as it allowed them the opportunity to put themselves in someone else’s shoes temporarily:
“Perhaps the most difficult lessons I needed to learn on this trip were about control and trust. Early on my first afternoon, walking to CCLM from the home where I was staying, I had my first experience with some of the anxiety my housemates frequently experience.
"Not far from the house, three young guys suddenly piled out of a car across the street from me. From behind, I heard “Hey, where ya goin?!” I kept walking until I heard a second “Hey man!” so I stopped, turned around and said “Hey” back at them. The guy then said “What’s that under your arm man? Is that a Bible?” at which point I said “Yeah” and he mumbled “Never mind!” and then he added something that sounded like “God bless ya” and they disappeared down a driveway.
"Later that evening I learned from one of my roommates how many people in the neighborhood look down on them because they live in the “AIDS house” and that I should be careful when I was traveling back and forth, that gay people weren’t looked on very favorably by many people in the neighborhood. He told me I was really brave to live there with them.
"So, a simple little leather bound, gilt-edged NRSV Bible seemingly helped me avoid some potential unpleasantry, perhaps because they assumed I was clergy. I wonder if they would have even tried to stop me if they hadn’t seen me leaving “The AIDS House.” That day I truly felt I had been protected by God’s Word.”
-Fred Wolfe
University Lutheran Church
Philadelphia, PA
On the final evening of the immersion experience, participants had the opportunity to attend CCLM’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration, hearing voices from the HIV-positive, immigrants, and homeless.
“It’s not a bad disease. It’s not a good disease. It’s just a disease. It does not make you a bad person.”
“David Carter, one of the first people who spoke at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration, gave us a testimony of his journey with AIDS thus far. He has been living with AIDS for thirty years and is now 55 years old. During his testimony, he told us that his mother said the above quote to him. It brought tears to my eyes as he shared this. He also said this: “HIV isn’t a death sentence; it’s a chronic disease. From the very first moment I was told, I decided I was gonna live.” It was an evening filled with living hope.
"It was an immersion experience filled with hope. For four days we met people who shared with us their stories of hope in their living. In the face of extreme pain and often trauma, people were living lives full of hope. Not only that, but the many special people we met were able to share their journeys with us for a short time, and they taught us so much in the four days we were there.”
-Becky Sorensen
M.Div./MSW Student
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago