I spoke with Todd Faulk yesterday about Cathedral of Hope’s newest group, F.A.C.E. He’ll be heading up the HIV/AIDS support group starting tonight all because of a discussion that happened during a COH Youth group session.
“HIV came up and Beau Heyen (youth minister) and I realized that kids don’t understand HIV. That discussion really shook everything up. I outed myself as being poz for 12 years to explain ‘this is what happened to me.’ Questions came out of that. And we encouraged kids who were sexually active to get tested and one came back positive. The church faculty felt there was a need to have a group for anybody impacted by HIV/AIDS including family members, people who have a partner with HIV or even those who are interested in learning,” Faulk said.
Upon that decision, F.A.C.E. was born with a mission to educate and remind people that HIV/AIDS isn’t something to easily dismiss as Faulk felt it has a bit in the recent past.
“I hope this accomplishes a renewed awareness. I think we went from a point of fear seeing people die to this younger generation who might feel that with advanced medical care, if they get it, it wont affect them same way. But when you look at the stats of people testing positive, awareness needs to be back out there,” he said.
The group plans to have special guest speakers each week starting with Michael Limerick, assistant professor of internal medicine in the infectious disease division at UT Southwestern. F.A.C.E. meets tonight at 7 p.m. in the Congregational Life Center Room 107 at Cathedral.
