I remember that Sunday morning: Three women with smiles on their faces shared their lives with the audience who had gathered in the air-conditioned hall of a five-star hotel.

I’m going to change their names: Mary was the first to come to the mike. There was a smile on her face as she sang with assurance that, “When troubles surround us, God “sends down His love on the wings of peace, her husband’s body had grown weak with a massive stroke. Day by day, she had found that there was no need to worry because God sustained her.

An hour later, I was the AIDS awareness programme in the same hall, and I heard Jean speak of her work with people who were HIV positive. As her name was announced, she bent down to click on the strap for her polio-stricken leg and then limped to the podium. There was a smile on her face, and no one in the audience had any doubt that she was happy in her work. Very few knew that with her disabled limb she trudged to work in rain or sun, leaving her home every day with no ideas as to what would be sold by her alcoholic husband to get money for his next drink. The HIV patients who came to her centre every day thought she was mad as she shared her meagre lunch with them, dispensed medicine and spoke to them about a God who carried her through her own suffering. “God uses the broken,” she said to the audience, “to reach out to the broken.”

Then a frail, tiny figure stood up. “I am HIV positive,” said Jacky. “I was a maid and got married to a driver who I didn’t know was already HIV positive.” She related her struggle as she had looked after a dying husband and then a dying son. After they had died, she had decided to commit suicide, but something had made her look to God for guidance and she had felt the need to care for other victims of her own disease. We heard how she looked after homes where little ones watched with terror as their parents suffered and died of AIDS, and then ran to her for comfort; about how she helped wives as they struggled to minister to a dying husband. There was a hush in the audience. We knew that it was only because of knowing pain herself that she could minister to those in pain.

That day I saw that God uses the broken to reach out and heal the broken…!

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