Smith put his arm around one girl and said, "We're going to pretend that she's HIV-positive." He then asked her to speak to three others. Giggling, she complied. Those three then spoke to the others. "That is how AIDS spreads," he said, and contrasted that multiplication with Christ's emphasis on sex only within marriage to one other person.
That was different from what the teens hear at the nearby government medical clinic, which offers free condoms. But Smith insisted, "The Bible says sex with the person you marry is the only protected sex."
The teens were silent. Smith pressed his point: "We prevent getting AIDS by abstaining from sex until we are married. God designed sex for marriage. ... Those who are married know that sex is best when it's with one person for the rest of your life. God's design is always best for us. Right now, young men are sleeping with three, four, five girlfriends. That's why we have all these funerals."
Bonga, 18, wasn't buying. "Black people are not the same as white people," he said. "Black people do not abstain." Smith responded: "I understand that the Zulu people like to say they do things differently. But this is not about what Rob thinks, nor about what the white man thinks. This is about what God thinks. If you reject this, you're not rejecting man, but God."
Bonga insisted: "We have sex before marriage." Smith shot back, "But Bonga can get AIDS and die."
The future of Africa depends more on the decision of Bonga than the decision of the G8 heads of state.