RAIN's mission is two-fold: (1) to assist faith communities in developing strategies for including HIV prevention education as part of their programs, and (2) organizing and developing congregation-based Care teams that provide emotional and practical support to persons living with HIV/AIDS, their spouses, partners and families. The opportunity to participate in RAIN has struck a deep chord in the faith communities of this region. RAIN encompasses 70 Care teams representing 60 congregations and 20 denominations/faith traditions. Twenty- five of these teams are African-American. Over 1500 persons have attended the introductory Care team training day. This broad, ecumenical response provides thousands of hours of service to care partners (clients) who represent the varied faces of this epidemic, and to their families, which often includes children. In addition to this direct service, and the benefits of the prevention message being heard from a valued community resource, RAIN volunteers have helped to frame the community's dialogue about HIV/AIDS, replacing judgement with understanding, prejudice with compassion, and ignorance with knowledge. They have helped communities of faith to be recognized as places of safety and support for those infected, and affected by the disease.

Through the RAIN model we have experienced the power of the Care team/Care partner relationships for both the people on the teams and for the persons living with HIV/AIDS. The "helping" clearly runs both ways. The act of providing care invites the team into a relationship with someone who is suffering. The relationship with someone who is suffering confronts the teams and individuals with unique, human situations where their world view and their identity are changed. Also, the structure of the team forces or invites the experience of community, with events of conflict, support and diversity. When individuals can allow themselves to be open, the teamwork and the relationships create growth. The persons with AIDS receive concrete and visible benefits of the team's care, such as transportation, companionship, and social activities. More difficult to measure, yet at least as valuable, both participants become involved in a relationship with the potential for acceptance, concern and, ultimately the potential for transformation. The transformation that can occur is wrapped up in the mystery of human vulnerability and the expressions of grace. People become vulnerable with each other in the midst of the experience of human suffering. People are forced, by the reality of suffering, to reveal themselves at a core level. Both Careteam members and Carepartners are faced with the common human experiences of pain, helplessness and fragility. This type of exposure, which is avoided at all costs in other settings, is pivotal in terms of spiritual growth. The vulnerably in these common human experiences invites identification and generosity. People gradually learn to give of themselves in profound ways. Grace and mercy are experienced as self-giving is offered without (too much) obligation or expectation. We have seen Careteam members and Carepartners experience an overflowing, generous and unexplainable sense of acceptance and forgiveness. In the ideal and often in the reality, the teams give of themselves freely and for no good reason, with no observable compensation or benefit. Such wasteful self-giving creates a unique situation where communion can occur. In contrast to the rejection and condemnation that is often reported by persons with AIDS, even from their own families, the Care teams offer hospitality, warmth and acceptance.

The volunteers experience personal growth and satisfaction primarily through two activities: (1) by learning to work as a team and, (2) by providing care for someone with a terminal, "unpopular" disease. The individual relationship between the Care team member and the person with AIDS provides an opportunity for the volunteer to transcend their own world view and enter into the life of another human being. The teams as groups provide the "holding environment" where the individual team member can be nurtured, challenged and equipped to give more authentic and effective care. In groups, people can heal the wounds that create distance and misunderstanding. People can learn to relate, to practice community and, in reality, to learn to love one another. Attached is the moving, personal story of one rural Care team's experience.