It’s tough to break through the noise. Peo­ple have got places to go. They’re lost in thought as they walk, talk­ing on the phone, wor­ry­ing about their own lives.

That’s why it was so cool to see a moment in time where peo­ple could pause and reflect, even briefly, about the enor­mous human cost of a pandemic.

It’s tough to miss what amounts to a grave­yard on a col­lege campus.

Seat­tle Pacific Uni­ver­sity stu­dents helped me place 1,000 white crosses with red rib­bons on their cam­pus, for World AIDS Day 2009. 1,000 rep­re­sents the num­ber of peo­ple who die from AIDS world­wide in a four hour period.

Big num­bers make my eyes glaze over. That’s why the crosses are so important.

Every cross rep­re­sents a name. A life. A mom, dad, son or daugh­ter. Some­one with a smile, with hopes for the future, with inter­ests and passions.

I was able to spend a day with chil­dren orphaned by AIDS in Kenya last year with Chris­t­ian human­i­tar­ian orga­ni­za­tion World Con­cern. I was amazed at the way they played and horsed around and kicked around a soc­cer ball. I took They are chil­dren — and they find them­selves with nobody to watch out for them.

It’s awe­some what World Con­cern is doing to help peo­ple with AIDS, and those left behind, in Haiti, Zam­bia and Kenya. Such crit­i­cal needs, of food, water, income, education.

It is the call­ing of Jesus to care for wid­ows and orphans, and this is exactly what AIDS has caused: 15 mil­lion orphaned boys and girls. This is essen­tial work. As one per­son said about this grass­roots project to raise aware­ness for AIDS, “This looks like Christ.”

For more infor­ma­tion and to see how you can pro­tect one orphaned child: www.worldconcern.org/godparent

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