A Message from Jerry

What happens when we serve people? What
happens when we come together regardless of our religious background, our race, our social or economic status, our gender or our past? What happens when we choose to move out of our comfort zone and show love? What happens when we love no matter what?

I’ll tell you what will happen—you will never be the same! And the world will never be the same.

As the cases of HIV continue to skyrocket around the world, I am asking the question, “Where is the love?” I ask this question every time I receive a phone call from someone who just tested positive with HIV. I wonder this when a mother in India is dying alone of AIDS. And when the 17-year-old who is living with HIV alone because he fears his family will send him out of the house if he tells them. And especially when a church in Africa refuses to help the AIDS orphanage directly across the street for fear of getting HIV.

There are thousands of stories I could share from over the past several years that make me wonder, “Where is the love?”

Sometimes I wonder if AIDS is really the disease, or if the true disease is the lack of love
around this issue. I dream of living in a world where people love each other regardless of whether they have HIV or not. Sometimes I find people are more concerned with knowing how someone got HIV than they are about loving them.

We have an opportunity to change this situation and it starts with love and it starts with you. Many of you have expressed your love by helping us at the Hughes Foundation go to the uttermost parts of the world and bring hope and love to those who experience neither. You have also helped us show this love in action by holding youth camps and medical clinics and leading HIV/AIDS education in schools throughout India, Africa and here in the USA.

The success we have seen together since 2003 has been as a result of your love. The needs continue to grow and the AIDS crisis is not going to be solved until we all show up and simply begin to be people who take a loving interest in this situation.

Please continue to read about how your love in action has resulted in remarkable change and how you can help us be the loving hands and feet that are so needed in such a time as this. There is no cure for HIV/AIDS, but there is a cure for hopelessness. We at the Hughes Foundation will continue to be a beacon of hope with your support and love.

I love you all and thank you from the depths of my heart for serving with us. Please continue to serve with us in 2008—make an investment in hope by donating today.

With Love,

Jerry L. Hughes
Founder and Executive Director