THis is pretty interesting...not sure if it will help you or not..but I will post anyway
The Heartland of America Tour - Day 4 - In Church with Bono
Read Bono's American Prayer delivered at Wheaton College
December 4, 2002
Chicago, Illinois
Bono speaks to the press.White poinsettias with red ribbons marking Christmas dotted the prayer rails of the Apostolic Faith Church of Bishop Horace Smith, MD and pastor of this large, urban predominately African American church on the south side of Chicago. Light snow was falling against the stained glass cross which served as the backdrop for Bono's first stop in Chicago, his third city on an eight day tour designed to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS in Africa. The urban parish stop was organized by World Vision's Metro with Reverend George E. Wilson, Executive Director of U.S. Programs, Metro Chicago and his team in South Chicago.
Over 200 people representing churches, nonprofits and HIV/AIDS organizations joined together to welcome Bono, Chris Tucker, Ashley Judd and Agnes to speak to the African American church leadership about engaging the church on AIDS in Africa. Men dressed in heavy overcoats and ladies in high fashion boots and hats checked their purses and coats at the door and brought their hearts and prayers to hear the message of Bishop Smith, Reverend George Wilson and the Bono team challenge the African American church to stand up and be counted on the AIDS issue.
Tears were flowing today in Chicago's Apostolic Faith Church when actress Ashley Judd and actor Chris Tucker both broke into tears as Agnes Nyanayarvo of Uganda once again told her story about her experience with HIV/AIDS. Agnes has been in America for less than a week and on the tour speaking publicly to Americans about her HIV/AIDS and that of her family's for four days.
AgnesAgnes is the heart in the Heart of America Tour. Bono reminds everyone, everywhere he goes, that the true heroine of the tour is not the rock stars and actors and actresses or politicians; no, it is Agnes with her brown eyes and quiet, steady presence with a message that grows louder with each stop on the tour. It is as if Agnes has found her cadence, the rhythm that lets her repeat the painful truth of death and AIDS in her own family. Her conviction that breaking the silence and stigma of AIDS is the path she must take; it is divinely inspired she says and her only way of fighting back. Agnes often says she has come to America to tell the American people about AIDS – nothing can impact and tear at your heart the way Agnes' story does. Loss is a way of life, grief the ghost that hovers over her story and is woven throughout the tale of death and life, of sickness and healing.
Judd and Tucker weren't acting this time. Judd struggled to compose herself enough to step into her customary role as Mistress of Ceremonies. Today, there were no more words only tears, "I can't do this. I can't hear Agnes' story one more time. It is all catching up to me, it is so painful." Her angular face turned to Agnes with immense sadness and a haunted look of compassion; a moment later, her tear stained cheeks turned to Bono, "I'm sorry, it just hurts too much," she said as Bono's arm gingerly touched Judd's shoulder offering her the healing space of a big brother protecting his baby sister."
Chris Tucker is deeply loved in Chicago and the connector, along with Agnes in this audience. He traveled to Africa with Bono on his recent trip with U.S. Secretary of Treasury O'Neill. "When I went to Africa with Bono and the Secretary, it blew me away. Being African American and seeing my family there – folks who looked like my father, my mother, my uncles, aunts and cousins, even my own son. I knew what they were facing just to get clean water; there was one well in each village. I'll never forget it."
Then Tucker too broke into tears. His face looked straight into the audience while people in the pews called out, "Say it brother. It is ok, say it."
"I don't know how Agnes has overcome this, her strength is overwhelming to me. I don't think I could do it. I just don't. God is inside of her. God is inside of this house. Look around. Bishop Smith knows my bishop in L.A. We are all connected in this AIDS crisis. Pray for us, all of us that we are guided the right way and doing the thing of the Holy Spirit," Tucker said in a halting voice as tears again ran down his cheeks. "I'll never forget," he repeated as he handed Bono the microphone.
Bono turns to Senator Durbin and motions for the Senator to speak. "The most important people in Chicago are in this room Bono. I don't know how you did it but the folks here can change the world." Senator Durbin continues, " There often comes a moment in a famous person's life – rock starts, actors, when they wake up and suddenly realize meaning has gone from their lives. They get a cause; they come to Washington, usually only once and then they go away. But this guy Bono, I call him the pest on Capitol Hill who just won't go away. I say that with love."
Cameras flashed, aides pulled on Bono's sleeves indicating it was time to move on. "I can't go," Bono said, "Without telling you that Chris Tucker had the entire Editorial Board of the Chicago Tribune holding hands and praying about AIDS in Africa."
"If you guys can get the Tribune to hold hands and pray, you can do anything," Senator Durbin said chiding his friends.
The two-hour forum ended with Bishop Horace Smith leading the assembled in prayer for the brothers and sisters in Africa. "If we don't respond to the children dying of AIDS in Africa, then we are not the church we should be." I want to thank World Vision for bringing us together today and for doing the wonderful work they do in our community."
Photos snapped, cameras rolling, Agnes and Chris holding hands with Reverend George Wilson and Bishop Smith – Bono raises his arm in the sky and folds them like a church overhead. Flash and he is led away by the handlers to his next stop. He takes off his hat and waves it as he walks, ears cocked to those trying to shake his hand and get a word in edgewise with the world's most famous rock star. "Could it be," one woman said," that he is so real?"
December 4, 2002 - pm
Wheaton, Illinois
Bono's American Prayer
"The AIDS pandemic is the worst epidemic humanity has witnessed in 600 years,"
Dr. Kim, Harvard University doctor on tour with Bono
"I believe God is on his knees to the church, to us, to act and turn around the supertanker of indifference. God Almighty is on his knees to the Church. How do I know? Because the gospels are filled with verses about the poorest of the pooR. Christ talks about the poor in Matthew 25. "I was naked and you clothed me. I was a stranger and you let me in."
Bono to 2,400 college students at Wheaton College.
"The costs of treating AIDS patients are $2.5 billion dollars, the equivalent of the price of a movie and popcorn for every single American. A continent is about to come down."
Dr. Kim, Harvard University
If you leave a Bono Heart of America Tour early, you'll come to regret it. As if tying the knot on the Christmas gift we all wanted, Bono harkens to the poetry of America and the ideal of justice and equality for all, with a newly evolving song entitled American Prayer. Those of us on the road with Bono know this secret and wait expectantly till the end for what is really the beginning of his plea to the world to follow the moral and biblical imperative to stop the hemorrhaging of humanity in sub Sahara Africa from the AIDS emergency.
Bono's Heart of America Tour tore the roof of the house of Edman Auditorium at Wheaton College in America's midwestern town of Wheaton, Illinois. The Christian college, famous for its graduates including Billy Graham and Todd and Lisa Beamer, was the site of a powerful biblically-based appeal to students to engage in the AIDS issue. With each stop along the tour, Bono is fueling the fires of a student movement that, he hopes, will be on par with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. "This is your civil rights movement and your moment in history," he tells the 2,400 students assembled in an ornately decorated hall complete with chandeliers dangling and a pipe organ glistening on stage.
He warned the mostly Christian audience: "Our discussion may divide some of us tonight. Why? Because I believe that if the Church doesn't respond that it will become a largely irrelevant body that preaches Love Thy Neighbor and does nothing. It will be the salt left on the side of a plate. Will you sound the alarm church, will you?"
Shocking statistics dramatically shift the mood in the auditorium once the glow of seeing Bono wears off. The reality of his message on AIDS sinks into a group of young people familiar with Matthew 25 in the Bible calling Christians to feed the hungry, cloth the poor and minister to the sick and dying.
"Six thousand five hundred people died today, and will die tomorrow and the day after, not taking a break for the Christmas holidays – they died of AIDS," began Ashley Judd as she took to the stage. 2.5 million Africans are going to die because they can't get access to treatment drugs for AIDS.
Bono knows his MTV audience and understands the emotional terrain of 18-25 year olds; they are after all, his fan base. He has choreographed a perfect appeal to what he considers an emergency of spirit, of morality and of humanity. The blending of prayer, gospel quotes, African music, HIV/AIDS testimony by Agnes and star power comprise the elixir that he hopes stirs the emotions and political impulses of young people to fight injustice and shape opinion on Capitol Hill in America to support increased government funding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs.
Day after day, site after site, Bono allows for God-filled moments that he hopes will stimulate massive political action like that of Vietnam War protests and Civil Rights Movements (he often quotes Martin Luther King). Write the President, call the White House, email your Congressional delegation and let them know America's sense of decency demands that the U.S. share its wealth and life raft of treatment and AIDS drugs for those in poverty stricken sub Sahara Africa.
Research demonstrates that without treatment, there is little likelihood of testing working. Why test if it is really nothing short of a death sentence. In Haiti, Dr. Kim of Harvard, noted that as soon as his clinic offered treatment, the testing sites were overwhelmed and the stigma associated with AIDS was gone. Prior to therapy, there was no reason to find you if you had AIDS. Before and after pictures were flashed on a screen that demonstrated the Lazarus effect of AIDS drugs. Picture after picture showed near death bodies before the drugs and the same people three months after, often having returned to work.
Sounding the clarion call to save Africa's children from AIDS is the 4-year-old Dominique of the Gateway Ambassadors, the Ghanaian choir traveling with Bono. "What about our little Dominique they ask into the microphone? Save Africa from AIDS, America, the troupe sings in unison.
Bono, who has been tapping his feet to the rhythm of African drumbeats, raises himself off the chair, reaches for his guitar bringing the audience to their feet as they wait in anticipation hearing his famous voice. Instead, he turns to his left and signals for the youngest boy member of the troupe to come forward and say a prayer. In a rapid fire voice that builds to a crescendo, the boy asks Jesus Christ to help the people of Africa who suffer from AIDS and with wisdom far beyond his years, he prays that America will help his people, all in the name of the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ. A perfect prelude to Bono's newest song, American Prayer.
"This is the time to finish what you started.
This is no time to dream.
This is the room. We can turn off the dark tonight. Maybe we can see.
This is my American Prayer, American Prayer.
This is the land.
The land that keeps your feet from getting wet.
And this is the sky over our head.
Remember that what you see depends on where you stand.
And how you jump will tell you where you're gonna land.
This is my American Prayer. American Prayer.
My oh my, let's not get tired.
Let's not kick at the darkness.
Let's make the light brighter.
These are the hands
What are we going to build with them?
This is a church you can't see.
Give me your tired and poor and huddled masses.
You know they're yearning to breathe free."
www.worldvision.org