Scott County churches, believers respond to HIV outbreak

In a seemingly desperate area plagued by poverty, intravenous drug use and more than 165 confirmed cases of HIV so far, religious Scott County residents and local churches have banded together — or in some cases, broken from the pack — to help those affected by the outbreak and convince them to seek God.

CREATING A MOVEMENT

The walks, organized by the group Together For Scott County: From Darkness to Deliverance (T4SC), are perhaps the most visible of these efforts, as well as the most united.

Thirty-four area churches are involved — 61 percent of Scotty County’s congregations, according to 2010 numbers from the Association of Religion Data Archives. That’s not exactly a common occurrence, said the Rev. Valerie Wilson, the pastor for Scottsburg United Methodist Church.

“Churches have been isolated from one another and uncooperative in the past — kind of hiding behind their denominational policies,” she said. “I see those barriers breaking down.”

At the walks, which take place every Monday at a different church, the participants march through nearby neighborhoods, carrying banners and informational flyers about future T4SC events. Members of T4SC’s leadership team sometimes approach the residents, asking them if they believe in Jesus.

“We’re just trying to let them know that there’s love. That there’s love in this community.” said Scottsburg resident and First Christian Church member Katy Hutchinson. She’s one of the earlier joiners of the movement, although not one of the first.

T4SC began modestly — just an informal March meeting within the walls of First Christian Church between four members of Scottsburg churches. While they chatted, Kim Ritchie, a member of Zoah Christian Church, mentioned a documentary she had seen called “An Appalachian Dawn.”

The movie tells the story of Clay County Ky., an area also notorious for its drug use. In the movie, a group of Christians decide to take control of their community and organize a prayer walk.

No definite plans were made by Ritchie and her companions at that first meeting. Two weeks afterward, however, eight more people, including Hutchinson, assembled in the same place. The third meeting brought 27 people from more churches and the final decision to start the prayer walks.

The first walk took place on April 6 and hosted 87 people. As many as 250 people have attended a walk at one time, said Hutchinson, but the biggest event has yet to come. The Day of Hope on July 25 will include a walk to Austin City Park where multiple local churches, a free medical clinic and festival-like attractions will convene.

PRAYER’S POWER

Before T4SC settled on hosting prayer walks, leaders brainstormed the possibility of church-sponsored transitional care or rehab.

“We decided we’re about prayer,” said Hutchinson. “That’s what we’re going to be about. They’ll be a lot of other people who can do those other things and we’ll want to do those other things, but we decided prayer is where we’re going to focus.”

The HIV epidemic in Scott County is a “spiritual issue” said Hutchinson. No governmental program or committee will completely solve it.

“Lives need to be saved for the calling of Jesus Christ and we need the truth of the gospel and we need to share the gospel and we need to be disciples,” she said. “That’s what’s going to make the change.”

Joan Duwve, Chief Medical Consultant at the Indiana State Department of Health, has visited Scott County multiple times since the outbreak. Every time she does, she said she sees a church helping in some way.

“I do think that they have sort of been the thread that’s woven together the supportive fabric for the response in Austin,” she said.

When treating addiction, multiple support systems should exist, she said: medical, mental health, socioeconomic and even faith-based communities.

The embedded status of churches are also important, she said.

“When the response is over and there’s not this overwhelming influx from people from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the state of Indiana, the faith-based communities are still going to be there,” she said.

They’re helping now, too, said Duwve. In some cases, churches can reach individuals suffering from addiction more efficiently than the state can.

Wilson can confirm this after eight weeks of prayer walks. People have begun to emerge from their homes to ask for prayer, she said. They even encountered one addict who asked how she could receive help.

Church involvement isn’t limited to weekly walks.

Grace Covenant Church in Austin, led by the Rev. Steve Gwaltney, has been serving the community for 68 years and boasts a congregation of about 100 people. Their services are held in a cheery building with comfy chairs and decorations that wouldn’t feel out of place in a suburban home. In short, Grace Covenant doesn’t feel like a church that would exist in the disaster area some reports have painted Austin to be.

The church is somehow removed from the epicenter of Austin’s drug problem, though it’s painfully close. It sits on Main Street and its front windows offer an unobstructed view of Austin City Hall, and Gwaltney’s sermons and speeches subtly reference the community’s plight and his hope that God will present himself to those who need him. But the people in Austin — the ones who need the most help — aren’t exactly clamoring for Gwaltney’s assistance, he explained after a well-attended Sunday service.

To help, Gwaltney has turned to supporting the efforts of believers, like Dana and Bill Snowden, who are directly involved in helping those with HIV. Grace Covenant lets the couple rent out one of its buildings and borrow its bus.

TAKING ACTION

Dana and Bill of Hope to Others Austin-Ministry didn’t mean to create a church. Their attempt to help their neighborhood began as a “kid’s club” five years ago.

“A lot of kids wander and we thought we needed to just do something to have a place for them to go and feel safe,” Dana said.

Dana and Bill lived near North and Rural streets in Austin. It “wasn’t a very good area,” Dana said.

The couple worried about their children at first, but something changed. They started talking to their neighbors.

“We realized they were just people and we liked them,” said Dana, adding that it made her want to help.

The family’s Sunday evening attempt to reach out to children connected with adults as well. Soon, they abandoned the term “kid’s club.” Dana didn’t want to exclude anyone.

Now, Hope to Others has Sunday morning services, events throughout the week and a bigger building on Mann Avenue. They became an official church in January.

Hope to Others hosts a Tuesday night recovery group. The leaders are former addicts who recovered after they began attending the church. The Scott County Health Department also hosts an HIV support group in their building.

“We just want to help the people with whatever they need and when we saw this, we said, ‘Well this is another way,’” said Dana.

She said she doesn’t want people to think of her family as a group of martyrs. They’re simply interacting with their neighbors.

“These people are our close friends, our best friends,” she said.

Milton Engerbretson, a member of Grace Covenant for a year and a half, also provides services to Austin residents. He currently shuttles people to and from their homes and the State Department of Health’s one-stop shop, a resource area for HIV related services.

He liked Grace Covenant because he saw that the church hosted a free breakfast for the community; it helped people. Engerbretson’s familiar with that concept. He’s a walker, too, although he started five years before T4SC. He would strike out on his own and wander around Mann Avenue, stopping to talk to people and tell them about Jesus. They got used to seeing his face.

That’s why the government asked Engerbretson to start his shuttle service in April. He doesn’t receive payment, but he fills up his silver Chevrolet Malibu anyway.

Sometimes Engerbretson said he gets discouraged. He’s not totally comfortable with the idea of the needle-exchange program meant to stem HIV infection and he doesn’t receive much reassurance from others when he tells them what he does.

“All I get is comments,” he said. Like, “I’m afraid you’re going to catch something” or “aren’t you scared?”

But that’s not what happens when he talks to the Gwaltneys.

“They support me by telling me I’m doing good,” he said. “Because a lot of times I get a little frustrated and I’m afraid that the church will get a bad name because of me.”

Church is his “go power,” he said.

Like many of the people at T4SC and Grace Covenant, Engerbretson isn’t ashamed of Scott County’s HIV outbreak, and even noted there are positives to take away. On his walks today, Engerbretson doesn’t pass as many harbingers of addiction that he once did: prostitutes roaming the streets and strangers lying on the ground.

Rick Burns, a church elder at Grace Covenant, said he and his fellow congregation members have been praying for years for the “light of Jesus” to penetrate Scott County.

“My hope was once this darkness was exposed, the resources would come to this area to combat it,” he said.

And that’s exactly what has happened.