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A Good Word

He Intends Victory

When Jennifer Veary married in 1997, few thought she would be around today. After she contracted HIV 16 years ago, Veary, a critical care nurse, expected to live only a year.

Her husband Rusty prepared for Jennifer’s deteriorating health. His only brother died of AIDS in 1992 and he shared in the caregiving during the final days. But thanks to improved medications, Veary’s immune system stabilized and she is in relatively good health.

Veary has been a board member with He Intends Victory since 1995. The Irvine, California-based ministry has been working to promote the hope of Jesus to those affected by HIV and AIDS since 1990. “We have opportunity to show love, compassion, and hope that only Jesus can offer to people living with HIV/AIDS,” Veary says.

While those infected include many Christians, Veary says a person’s spiritual status shouldn’t be the criteria for receiving treatment.
“It’s just a virus; it doesn’t define who we are,” Veary says. “It’s like saying we aren’t going to minister to people with prostate cancer or leukemia.”

As an AIDS educator for He Intends Victory, Veary reminds her audiences of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25 to minister to those rejected by the rest of society. “The Bible doesn’t say we are to go and change their lifestyle; that’s not up to us,” Veary says. “The Holy Spirit does the work of changing hearts through our gestures of love.”

Veary speaks from firsthand knowledge. Before she became a Christian in 1993, she had sexual intercourse with a man who unknowingly had AIDS. She is grateful that just after her diagnosis her best friend, a Christian, explained that God can bring peace to troubled situations.

“I was headed to eternal separation from God,” says Veary, a licensed minister working on a master’s degree in biblical counseling. “I’d rather have HIV and know Jesus than not have it and not know Him. People living with HIV are facing their own mortality. Being able to give others the hope of eternity is what it’s all about.”

How people become infected isn’t important, Veary maintains. “Is the person who gets it through a homosexual relationship worse than the person who gets it through heterosexual sex? We need to love each person as a child of God.”

For more information about He Intends Victory, please see their Web site at heintendsvictory.com.

JOHN W. KENNEDY is the news editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.

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