Patricia Sawo is Tearfund's HIV Ambassador and lives in Kenya. She is a wife and mother to five of her own children and five orphans. She described herself as a parent to a further 197 orphaned children she pastors in a church-run centre, calling them her 'big, big family' and the 'joy of her heart'.
She spoke of how as a pastor she would preach messages of stigma and then felt the stigma herself when she became aware of her own HIV status.
"God spoke to my heart and convinced me that HIV and Aids was not something to be a punishment from God, that it was not a moral issue but it was an issue to deal with life," said Ms Sawo. "It was the enemy against our lives and our families, and so that changed my heart."
She said that the continuing prevalence of HIV was "alarming" and that poverty has a very big impact on HIV.
"Having grown up in poverty and yearning to come out of it and having been faced with the diseases and stigma, I come out of it as somebody who speaks the language of the church leaders," said Sawo.
Referring to Tearfund's 'passion' of mobilising 100,000 churches within the next ten years to impact 50 million lives, Ms Sawo added: "That is something I am able to do as a church leader through the local congregation and therefore in a position to influence and change the attitudes of other church leaders so that together we can get involved with the work of HIV and Aids and make a difference."
The conference also heard reflections on where the church has fallen short, including the failings of miss-action and inaction.
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Secretary for International Development, David Peck said, "It takes responsibility for doing the right things and it takes responsibility for doing the wrong things and our contribution has wonderfully been right and sadly been wrong. So what we need to focus on is the repentance for what we get wrong and the energising and focussing in building what we get right."
He continued, "You cannot read the Bible and think that 33 million people around the world who are HIV positive, and how many tens of millions more are impacted by the weight of that illness, and the vulnerability that HIV creates, and think it doesn't involve Jesus and it doesn't involve me."
Conference seminars included a focus on supporting vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers within the community, feeling the isolation of HIV, leadership within the church, and biblical responses to the pandemic.
The senior pastor of Bracknell Family Church, Simon Benham, was a leader excited by the day. He described the event as part of laying down a foundation as a church.
"It just launches us into a whole new phase of involvement," said Mr Benham. "People have come from all over the place. You know in some sense we can become a flagship in the UK for how churches can engage. Not in a way that we would boast about, but just in away that would equip and enable other churches to be involved because of our involvement. That would be so cool for us."
