NAIROBI, KENYA -- Bishop James Okombo, 51, stands more than 6 feet tall with a white collar around his neck. At first, he looks like an ordinary pastor.
But unlike other bishops, Okombo uses the pulpit to preach the message of hope, tolerance, and access to medication and condoms for people living with HIV in Kenya.
“The traditional ’Abstain [and] be faithful’ way can’t prevent HIV in Kenya,” he says. “We are human beings and we have feelings. I tell my congregation that if they want to have sex they must use condoms. But they should know that it’s not a guarantee that the condom will protect them from acquiring HIV/AIDS. It’s better than telling them to abstain,” Okombo says.
Okombo has been living with HIV for almost 10 years. “It’s not an easy journey,” he says. “But churches can eliminate stigma if they acquire accurate information and educate and eradicate ignorance in their congregations.” Okombo says the churches should “encourage their members to get tested by providing [free testing] centers in their places of worship.”
Okombo founded Free Christian Assemblies Church in 2001 after he was removed from of his former church when the archbishop found out that he was HIV positive. His church is dedicated to reducing stigma and discrimination for Kenya’s HIV positive population.
For more than 25 years, people in Kenya have been living with HIV, yet social stigma and discrimination remain common. More than a million Kenyans are HIV positive, 65 percent of this positive population is women. While many here fight the social stigma with religious and social messages, others say they hope the long-awaited HIV tribunal will begin hearing cases of discrimination and injustice very soon.
A Pastor Tests Positive
Okombo learned he was positive after his wife was admitted to the hospital for an illness. He was visiting his wife when a doctor approached him and told him that his wife had tested HIV positive. Okombo says he laughed at the news in disbelief.
He says the doctors had previously informed him that his wife had pneumonia and so he was not prepared for the new diagnosis. “I walked slowly towards my wife. I looked at her as tears were dropping out of my eyes,” he recalls.
Okombo insisted he be tested immediately. His results came back positive too. Doctors say they were shocked to see him looking healthy, as the test revealed that his CD4 count, a measure of the cells that determine immunity, was 182, a dangerously low number.
Okombo describes the next few days as “a series of humiliating incidents.” When the archbishop of his church learned the news, he was publicly called an “adulterer” and a “lair.” Rumors spread that he infected his wife with HIV and failed to confess. He was defrocked by the archbishop, a man he refuses to name.
“I was thrown out of the house that the church had given me. My children were thrown from the church Sunday school,” he says.
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