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AIDS, Drugs and Prison

I heard a frantic voice on the phone, “Teacher, Teacher, Mei-ling is thrashing around on the floor and screaming while foaming at the mouth. What should I do!?” The voice belonged to Mei-ling’s mom. I told her to take Mei-ling to the emergency room, where I would meet them. Arriving at the hospital, I realized that Mei-ling had been using drugs again. By that time she was so wild that three strong men had a hard time holding her down for the nurses to put restraints on her.

Mei-ling is a 24-year old HIV-positive, pregnant drug addict who I got to know in the detention center. She was released from the center the day before I received that frantic call. HIV-positive pregnant women are released from prison at three months of pregnancy, but have to return to finish their sentences after the birth of their babies. Mei-ling celebrated the joy of her freedom by using heroin. Her baby miraculously survived the ordeal and was delivered by caesarian section six months later. The newborn baby was soon transferred to the baby center at the Garden of Mercy, where she was given HAART medication for the first six weeks of her life. Mei-ling returned to her old lifestyle.

Ministering among Taiwan’s people who have HIV/AIDS is very different from when I began fourteen years ago. Today more and more women are being found to be HIV-positive. Drug addicts share needles when “shooting up” and get infected. More HIV-positive men and women land in prison, and HIV-positive drug addicted women deliver babies that they are unable to look after.

Because of these changes, my work is also different. Besides visiting AIDS patients in hospital, I also visit HIV-positive, addicts in prisons and detention centers. Some days I help the Garden of Mercy foundation in its baby center where they look after babies born to HIV-positive mothers who are either unable or unwilling to look after their babies themselves. We try to find Christian homes for those who are put up for adoption.

As I walked down the corridor of the men’s detention center, an inmate called out, “Teacher, what are you doing here!?” I looked up into the very embarrassed face of “Jack,” who I had previously met in hospital. When I first met him, he told me that he couldn’t possibly accept Jesus as his Savior. Talking with him again, I learned that he had been baptized. He told me that he had been pressured into being baptized by another Christian group that also visits the detention center. I quickly discovered that he didn’t really understand what being a Christian meant. We continued to meet once a week, and I asked prayer partners to pray for him too. Several weeks later Jack told me very humbly that he talks to the Lord at night and sometimes asks the Lord to forgive his sins. I joyfully told him: “If you have asked God to forgive your sins, he has done it, and you are a Christian!” We continued studying God’s Word together. A few weeks later one of his cellmates asked to talk to me, as he saw the way Jack had changed, reading his Bible and praying. For long periods of time nothing seems to happen in this difficult ministry, and I wonder “Is it worth it? Am I wasting my time?” Then one person comes to the Lord, and I can say, "A thousand times — YES!"