| 'Granny Brigade' Mobilizes Help for African HIV-Positive Children |
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From CharismaNOW 04.19.2005 A motivated band of grandmothers are seeking to comfort HIV-positive children in South Africa. The group's 78-year-old leader says she wants "to love and to rock and to hold" the children as only a grandmother can. Miriam Machovec said her heart broke last year as she watched a 12-year-old HIV-positive child in South Africa playing both mother and father to her nine younger siblings after their parents died of AIDS. Machovec returned to her Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home with a heavy prayer burden. During intercession for the children, she said God told her to organize a Granny Brigade to take grandmotherly love and care to the orphans infected with HIV and living in African refugee camps."I had to look in the dictionary to see what the word 'brigade' meant," Machovec told "Charisma" magazine in the May issue, out now. The full story on can be found in the magazine. "I knew it had a military meaning. I changed the definition a bit. The Granny Brigade is a group of grannies with a purpose to accomplish much," she added. The widowed mother of three, grandmother of six, and great-grandmother of three is leading a group of 11 women, whose average age is 60, back to South Africa from April 29 to May 9 to minister to thousands of kids. Book of Hope (BOH), a Pompano Beach, Fla.-based international ministry focused on reaching children with the gospel, is sending the Granny Brigade under its umbrella, but the women are paying their own way. The grannies will visit an orphanage, a refugee camp and a small village to bring the love of God to hurting people. The brigade will also visit public schools to distribute BOH's Scripture books to schoolchildren at the request of the local government. BOH books contain all four Gospels. "We can't cure AIDS, but we can hold and rock and love the children of the world that have AIDS, as only a grandmother can do. And we will," said Machovec, a longtime member of Christian Life Center, an Assemblies of God congregation in Fort Lauderdale. "We are going to hold them and love them and tell them grandma stories." BOH executive director Rob Hoskins said he immediately embraced what he believed was an inspired initiative and set out to help the can-do granny make the vision a reality. "The love that the grandmas are going to provide to those desperately needy kids will be powerful," Hoskins said. "Miriam is my hero. I wish every grandma in America had her spirit and vision. She always says to me time after time that a vision without action is just a dream." Machovec believes the Granny Brigade will make additional trips to South Africa. She says the Lord knows how old she is, and she's depending on Him to help her carry out this mandate. "If He tells me to train someone else, then I would be happy to do that," she said.
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