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Features by Bill & Sara Goodman (ex Crosslinks Ethiopia) - observations on life from Ethiopia
Good Medicine
When her third baby died, Tigist decided it was time to face the truth. She would have the blood test, to find out if she had the dreaded 'new sickness' that nobody wants to talk about. The test result came; it showed that she was HIV positive.
She talked to some of the helpers at the women's welfare project run by members of the local churches. "Before I die," she told them, "I want to find peace with God. Where can I find that peace?" They took her along to an evangelistic meeting, a little fearful that she was simply seeking physical healing and would be disappointed. But they were wrong: there she heard the gospel, and made her response, opening her life to Christ. "Now I have found peace with God" she said afterwards.
This new-found peace led her to make peace with others - notably her former husband and his mother. Their relationship had long been soured by deep bitterness; now she asked them for forgiveness. The three of them wept, and prayed together for the very first time. Afterwards, Tigist said to some of the workers at My Sisters: "This peace with others is good; and peace with
myself is good; and peace with God, that is very good - it's like medicine."
Now Tigist seemed to find a new energy - she started washing herself and her clothes. (Previously she had been notorious for not washing at all.)
As AIDS rapidly took hold, she went to live in the hospice run by Mother Theresa's nurses. Soon they reported back: "You have sent us such a good helper. She is helping others, washing their clothes." She was to remain there for whatever time she had left. But her health improved a lot; so she came out of the hospice, to be cared for by the mother-in-law to whom she
had been reconciled. That's where Tigist was living around Easter time, when she died.
(Bill & Sara Goodman July 2001)
The Goodmans were Crosslinks' Mission Partners working in Ethiopia