World Vision Launches Advent Calendar to Fight AIDS Pandemic

Christian relief and development charity, World Vision, has called on Christians and churches this week to download an interactive Advent Calendar Screensaver to kick off the charity's Take2 Campaign aimed at encouraging Britain's churches to focus their attention on the AIDS pandemic.

Author Dale Hanson Bourke explained: "AIDS is the biggest public health problem the world has ever faced. An estimated three million people die each year from AIDS, a death toll that has been compared to twenty fully loaded 747s crashing every single day for a year."

"AIDS is having a devastating impact on our world," World Vision said. "The total number of people living with HIV globally rose to more than 40 million in 2005. Around five million people acquired HIV in 2005, and more than three million people died of AIDS-related illnesses."

World Vision's Church Relations Manager, Alistair Metcalfe, said: "We are asking churches to begin a journey with us into the heart of a continent in crisis. Two minutes is all it takes people to be a part of Take2."

World Vision is encouraging churches and Christians to get into the Christmas spirit by following the Advent story revealed behind each door of the Advent Calendar as well as to share in the journey that church leader Rev Dave Richards and his wife Cathy, who are fronting the Take2 Campaign, made to Kenya last week.

|QUOTE|Rev Richards stated, "Cathy and I have been on a fantastic journey and discovered light in the darkness, and hope in the face of death. Please join us this December to see how we got on.

"See how the church in Africa is responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic with faith, courage and hope. See how you can respond as a church and as an individual. This Christmas think about a child, born in poverty, who materially has nothing but has hope to sustain them - and then think about Jesus too!"

Alistair Metcalfe concluded, "Opening the doors of our interactive Advent Calendar screensaver is a wonderful way to journey towards Christmas this year, there are readings stories and lots of fun things to play with. But it's also an invitation to take part in another journey: a trip to the heart of a nation gripped by the effects of HIV and AIDS and yet profoundly hopeful about what God is doing among them. The sights and sounds of Africa together with stories of Dave and Cathy's own personal reflections will move you."

To download the Advent Calendar and to find out more about Take2 log on www.worldvision.org.uk/Take2