{"id":213,"date":"2014-04-12T22:15:18","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T22:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/?p=213"},"modified":"2014-04-28T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T17:44:10","slug":"day-5-traveling-with-the-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":"Day 5 – HIV INITIATIVES IN MVURWI"},"content":{"rendered":"

We set out early Saturday morning for the town of Mvurwi, a community of approximately 40,000, 150 kms north of Harare. The countryside is beautiful. Rich red earth coupled with massive fields dotted with trees, grass blowing in the wind and the huge African sky with its endless horizon \u2013 it\u2019s all quite amazing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The community of Mvurwi has no industry but many bars and is home to the largest HIV population in Zimbabwe. Indeed, government sources suggest that 1\/3 of the local population is HIV positive. This figure could be higher. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We arrive at the corps to film a meeting of an HIV support program. Started as a grassroots initiative. it has become a significant force for good \u2013 helping people to secure much-needed drugs, providing home support as well as counseling. We interviewed the founder, Gordon, who is HIV positive and we also visited two clients at their homes with their caregivers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The visits were sad but powerful. Team members listened carefully to the stories of those suffering from HIV and it was evident that the disease affects the whole family. A beautiful moment was when Major Kyle Smith and Ricky of the SAVN.TV crew stepped forward, knelt down and held the hands of one of the patients. We concluded our visits with prayer.<\/p>\n

We closed our day with a visit to the farm of Benjamin Bofu, a Salvationist and 30-year employee of The Salvation Army. He is a fascinating man with a significant history in the development sector across Africa. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So there ends Day 5. \u00a0A day filled with raw emotion as we witnessed first hand the devastating effects of HIV in one African community. The things we read about at home so far away became crystal clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tomorrow, we\u2019re off to Victoria Falls. Please pray for us as we travel and thanks again for reading.<\/span><\/p>\n

Major John Murray, IHQ Communications and Literary Secretary<\/span><\/p>\n

\"John<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We set out early Saturday morning for the town of Mvurwi, a community of approximately 40,000, 150 kms north of Harare. The countryside is beautiful. Rich red earth coupled with massive fields dotted with trees, grass blowing in the wind and the huge African sky with its endless horizon \u2013 it\u2019s all quite amazing.\u00a0 The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blog.savn.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}