by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE – A wildfire in Africa is consuming people at the rate of 6,500 a day – one every 11 seconds – and the West won't empower firefighters to put it out because the water bill isn't paid.

That's why a famous singer and his entourage recently made a 10-day barnstorming trip through the American heartland, yelling, "Fire!" about the global scourge of AIDS.

"A rock star with a cause," Bono said apologetically Saturday afternoon. "I wince, myself. ... This is not the cause du jour; please don't describe this as a cause. It's not a cause, it's an emergency."

Bono, the lead singer of the rock group U2, accompanied by actor/comedian Chris Tucker and Kentucky-born singer Wynona Judd, among others, stopped at the Presbyterian Center over the weekend to take advantage of the serendipitous presence of nearly all the moderators of presbyteries and synods of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and to deliver the message: "The thing that's shocking is that nobody is raising the alarm. Can't somebody shout, ‘Fire!'? ... Why are we not hearing about this on the nightly news?

"Six thousand five-hundred people are dying every day, for the stupidest of reasons – money," he said. "Two and a half million Africans will die next year for lack of drugs we take for granted in Europe and America."

Standing at a pulpit in the Presbyterian Center's chapel ("Rock star gets comfortable in pulpit – could be dangerous"), Bono cited Jesus's words from Matthew 25:

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. ... Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

"Who are ‘the least of these?'" he demanded, adding: "Sounds like I'm preaching to the converted, really. I wish every church was feeling this passion."

Bono had been preceded to the pulpit by several representatives of the PC(USA) who talked about the denomination's involvement in mission in Africa, among them Gary Cook, coordinator of the Presbyterian Hunger Program; John Chapman, coordinator for eastern and southern Africa in the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD); Dorothy Hansen, HIV/AIDS project manager in WMD; and Melanie Hardison, a program assistant for social justice in the National Ministries Division.

They pointed out that the PC(USA) has been engaged for a long time in efforts to prevent the "diseases of poverty" – tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS – and to treat their victims; and has been in the forefront of the Jubilee movement, which advocates forgiveness of poor countries' debts.

The singer, who often resorts to self-deprecating humor ("I don't have any letters after my name – I don't even have a name after my name") was careful to disarm anyone who might be tempted to raise him up as a model Christian.

"I'm not a very good advertisement for God," he would later tell a much larger crowd at Northeast Christian Church. "I don't wear that badge on my lapel."

Yet the message he had delivered, to audiences from Nebraska, through Iowa, Illinois and Indiana to Kentucky, was a distinctly and unapologetically Christian one.

He said he is determined to "turn around this supertanker of indifference," and won't stop until it's done: "I can tell you this: We are not going to fail."

That AIDS was not the only matter at hand was clear from the name of the tour's sponsoring organization, DATA: Debt. AIDS. Trade. Africa. Among the most intractable problems related to the AIDS crisis are trade inequities ("The poorest of the poor cannot get their products on American shelves") and onerous international debt ("African nations spend more than twice as much for debt repayment as for health care").

The Presbyterian Center, where the moderators were meeting for their annual conference, also was the venue for two private meetings with local AIDS activists and community leaders on Saturday.

The tour's real headliners were the shocking numbers: 3.5 million Africans will be infected by HIV next year; 6,500 will die of AIDS; 500,000 babies will get the virus from their mothers; by 2010 the continent will be home to 25 million AIDS orphans.

Bono made his first trip to Africa in the early 1980s. He said he was transformed by one experience in particular: "A woman asked me to please take her child. ‘If he stays with me, he will die,' she said, ‘If he goes with you I know he will live.'"

And he said he will never get over the shock of seeing people in African refugee camps "queuing up to die, three to a bed."

Bono and his wife, Ali, have four children.

The singer told reporters that the Midwest was chosen for the Heart of America Tour because "there's a certain kind of decency here. ... We think you people have a sense of what's right and wrong."

He clearly was energized by the "sense of moral outrage" he said he'd inherited from his Irish father: "We can get cold fizzy drinks to the farthest reaches of Africa," he said, "but we can't get life-saving medicines to the people who need it – medicines that are very cheap for us to make."

Asked during a press conference whether he thought race was a factor in the West's indifference about AIDS in Africa, he replied, "If one-third of Paris was going to die, they'd get the drugs." He added that, if the world is going to address the AIDS problem effectively, "We have to accept that our brothers and sisters who live in Africa are equal to us – equal before God's eyes," which implies a responsibility to see that they have "equal access to just some of the world's resources."

It was Bono's celebrity that drew about 1,100 people to Northeast Christian for the Saturday evening event, but it was a quiet African woman, Agnes Nyamayarwo, who grabbed their hearts.

"I am from Uganda. I am blessed to be here with you tonight," she began. "I once had 10 children ... and we were very happy..."

Her family's happiness was shattered when her husband – a migrant worker – tested HIV-positive, and Agnes couldn't afford the medicines necessary to keep him alive. "We bought it until we couldn't buy it any more," she said, "and then we watched him die, without treatment."

She learned that she also was infected. She said she was "one of the lucky ones" who had access to the anti-retroviral medicines that can keep AIDS in check. But her youngest child also got AIDS.

"Now I get a very other big problem," she said. "He's innocent, and he got the HIV from me. It was very difficult to me, but I tried to gain courage, and I prayed my Lord."

Agnes, who now works as an AIDS educator and activist, concluded: "Now I have a vision, a dream. And I can see it coming near ... because of the response of the people. I feel one day my dream will come true – my dream of a world without AIDS."

The crowd at Northeast Christian also enjoyed a more upbeat experience, a rollicking singing-and-dancing performance by a group of young Africans, the Gateway Ambassadors, as well as a closing song – "My American Dream" – from Bono, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar.

"Let me say this in the house of God," he said near the end of his visit. "If there is anyone here who wants to pass judgment on a woman like Agnes, and indeed her husband, then maybe they should leave now. Because God will be the judge."

He had said several times earlier in the day that the gospels contain "2,013 references to the poor, but Jesus mentions judgment only once."

He mentioned it more often himself.

"History will judge our whole age" by our response to the AIDS crisis, he said, and "our grandchildren will be asking how we let a whole continent burst into flame."

Bono said multi-billionaire Warren Buffet, who attended one of the tour events in Nebraska, gave him some advice that he had taken to heart: "Don't appeal to the conscience of America; appeal to the greatness of America."

Judd, who described herself as "a believer in miracles," was standing in for her sister, Ashley, who had traveled with Bono for most of the tour. "We're a very passionate family," she said, "and we want Washington to know that Kentucky is interested in this. ... When I read the statistics (on AIDS in Africa), I wept, to think that mothers are watching their children die, when all it takes to save them is a single shot."

Tucker, who accompanied Bono on one of his recent visits to Africa, said he is "blessed to be hanging out with someone as cool and smart as him," and described the trip as "the greatest experience, and the saddest experience," of his life.

"As an African-American, I was shook, to see all those people who reminded me of my people back home, my nephews and cousins and uncles and brothers," he said, adding: "I know God is using us, using all of us, to save lives."

Bono and the others on the tour had visited churches, universities, city halls, factories, union halls and cultural centers in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and were to end their trip with two days in Nashville, TN.

PCUSA News Service