Maryland Women Journey to Africa to Help AIDS Orphans
Two Maryland women, both in their seventies, will travel to Africa on March 4, bringing with them over $20,000 for three AIDS orphan trusts, the Washington Post reports. The trip to Zimbabwe, a nation with one of the highest rates of HIV infection on the continent, will be their third in three years. Cleo McCoy, 70, and Emily Frye, 74, first traveled to Zimbabwe in 1997 with a group from their Crofton, Md.-based congregation to help build a church. They were "amazed" by what they saw there: "tremendous heartbreak pressed against an unshakable wall of faith and will to live," they said. The Zimbabweans "have a faith in God that I've never known," McCoy said. McCoy and Frye "formed a strong bond" with their hosts, Revs. Remember and Maria Masamba, and stayed in touch with the Zimbabweans after their return home. After receiving a package of 400 pictures of AIDS orphans from the Masambas, the women were encouraged to act. Last year they returned to Zimbabwe to teach women how to sew clothes and can foods, bringing along donated materials and money from their church and community. McCoy and Frye have taken pictures from the trip to churches in Maryland and Washington, D.C., asking congregations for "whatever they can spare" to help the orphans (Medley, Washington Post, 2/22).
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