Smile

I almost see her smile before I see her.

She is wearing the uniform of a contract employee.

She is taking bags at a nearby supermarket. You hand in your bag or helmet or whatever - and she puts it in a shelf and gives you a little plastic number for you to reclaim your belongings later.

She is dressed in the dark blue uniform of the contract agency. The supermarket doesn't want to employ staff - so it 'outsources' the bulk of its staff to these agencies - who 'provide' the services.

She is HIV positive.

None of the shoppers know that. She has not told her employers. And she does not need to. Nothing that she is doing will put anyone at any risk of getting HIV.

The shoppers all have a far, far, far higher risk of dying to by falling into the mayonnaise jars and cutting up their faces - than getting HIV from her when they give her their helmets and bags and she gives them their little numbers.

She, on the other hand, will almost certainly lose her job if she discloses her HIV status to the agency which has 'supplied' her to the supermarket.

How do we know she is HIV positive?

Well, we know it because of the many times we have prayed with her.

Four years ago Tina (name changed of course) was dying. She could not keep anything down and was continuously vomiting. The doctors at the civil hospital had washed their hands off her. She came to us as a matter of last resort.

Sheba and the nurses looked after her. They cared for her at our clinic for two prayer-soaked weeks. She pulled through.

After she was discharged, Tina continued to grow strong. She was working with a travel agency. Then she wanted to start a business on her own with a friend. That fell through. Tina went through some ups and downs - but physically she remained very much on the mend. She had the courage of standing up infront of 400 young people at one of our YAA Festivals and telling her story.

Then one day she told us about a great new opportunity she was getting. A group had encouraged her to invest money. She was going to get an astounding rate of return. And what's more - she was being given a dream job. This group were Christians no less. And they wanted people to be praying round the clock. And so they were hiring her to be on their prayer team. She was going to be paid to pray.

It sounded too good to be true. My hackles went up immediately. But Tina was firm in her decision to join this group.

As expected, what sounded too good to be true .... just wasn't.

My blood boils when I hear about these pyramid schemes that use Christianity as a bait to get people involved. They keep saying the same thing - if you join us - you will benefit. No problems if you want to leave. You can do ministry too. Yada yada. The basic pull is simple. You can get rich.

The typical pyramid scheme (also called Ponzi schemes, multi-level marketing etc) is built on people selling something - and passing a commission up the line. The more people you recruit into this - the richer you get - because you are now benefitting from the money others are passing up to you. If you have been able to get a lot of people excited about your scheme - then you are going to get a lot of money coming your way.

There will always be a few who - at least early in the game - rake it in. They are never silent about what they are earning. Their stories are what push the others forward. "Oh so-and-so - well he pulls in 12 lakh per month!" "That person has two swimming pools - and we got to swim in them!" and other such aspirational gossip flows around.

When I was at college in the US - there was a group of students who were selling water-filters. That in a country where 3 cases of diarrheoa makes the headlines of the local papers. The reason they were sold on selling - was to convince folks that their water tasted funny and needed this filter. They achieved his by adding some chemical to 'unfiltered' water - which turned it an unappetising deep-urine-yellow - and then doing the same with their 'filtered' water - which remained beautifully clear. No one wants to drink urine was the not-so-subliminal message. But the real driver of it all was the big boss who used to call up his troops and tell them about how much he earned - and cajole them to recruit others.

At the base of it all is a simple question. What is really adding value? If you are making something real - then you can expect profits of 10-25% per year. Competition kicks in and whatever you do - there will be others making a similar thing and giving good rates to your potential customers.

So anyone who says they are making 100 - 500% profit per year is lying - or they are syphoning off the 'pay-ins' of folks who are signing up to become their dealers - and will soon run away with the money - leaving the lower level guys high and dry.

For Tina's group - they dolled it up with Christian-sounding jargon like 'blessings points' and 'super-natural'.

Tina lost her money - for all I know - and also her job. It was over 5 months since she was paid. She prayed. She regularly did her 'job' of supplicating for others. But she was not given the salary that she was promised - and that she received when she first joined to group. Tina got nothing for the past 5 months. And so she had to 'quit.' The heavily 'Christian' rhetoric did not match up with reality.

And it cannot.

So Tina is now working as a contract employee for an agency that 'supplies' her services to the supermarket. She works 12 hours a day. 7 days a week. No offs.

And she continues to be HIV positive.

And Tina's smile remains bright.

Though life continues to give her hard knocks aplenty - her faith in God (despite the slimy ones that claimed to be working in His name) continues to be strong. Sadly, because of the terms of her current job she cannot go to church on Sunday mornings.