A Time To Love, when Aids takes a son, a friend

Plot

In this book a mother tells a candid story of agony and anguish experienced as AIDS took her son. Roger's journals disclose his struggles with his sexuality and his feelings of rejection and alienation. The drama shows how he eventually comes to peace with himself, his loved ones, and God. Roger's family upholds him emotionally, physically, and spiritually through phone calls, letters, prayers, and visits from Kansas to California, where Roger lived. His parents, Helen and Marvin Hostetler, sense God's strength and providential intervention as they go through the ordeal of Roger's last years. A core of friends stand by Roger, and a San Francisco church support group shares compassion and love with the Hostetlers, bearing burdens with them. Persons with AIDS are often treated as social outcasts. The author challenges the church to reflect on its ministry to them, to be redemptive, to walk with those in pain, offering care, friendship, trust, and hope.