Belynda is also a recovering alcoholic who learned of her HIV status through a workplace testing program. She believes she may have been infected by her fiancé, who abruptly broke off their engagement, and left town. Hearing of his death from AIDS, she decided to be tested.

Her health care work brought her to AIDS Action Committee in Boston, and she became a full-time staff member after her diagnosis. There, she found mentorship from Pernessa Seele at Balm in Gilead, an AIDS service organization focusing on African American churches in Harlem. Belynda founded Who Touched Me Ministry in Boston. Finding her voice through her rage and honesty Belynda called on the leaders of the Black churches to open their doors to all parishoners in their community; the addicted, the homosexuals and the HIV- infected. Through Who Touched Me Ministry she challenged the churches to break the silence and shame that was decimating members of her community. Now churches provide services to people with HIV within the community, from driving parishoners to their doctor's appointments to bringing them home-cooked meals to their door, the churches are ministering to people in ways that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years before.

She is in no danger of death from her HIV. Belynda suffers from end stage liver disease, which is a result of hepatitis, and she will die without a liver transplant. She is currently awaiting an appropriate liver donor. Belynda's insurance company denied coverage of the transplant as "an experimental procedure", and she asked the state of Massachusetts to review of the decision and to overturn the denial. The Massachusetts Office of Patient Protection denied her request on July 19, 2001. On July 20, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced the creation of a fund to help people like Belynda who have been denied transplant coverage by their HMO. Dubbed the Life Fund, it will allow Belynda to have the operation she desperately needs and pay for similar procedures in other people who need lifesaving treatment. $400,000 has been raised so far for the surgery. More information about the Life Fund is available on the web site of AIDS Action Committee (see Resources).

Belynda is an active churchgoer who originally rejected traditional therapies in favor of alternative treatments and prayer, but when diagnosed with hepatitis C, she began AIDS cocktail treatments. A combination of severe side effects and an increasingly compromised liver lead her to drop the treatments while she awaits a liver transplant.

Belynda is described as a woman of truth and eloquence, who is also saucy, honest, and tenacious, although she currently is experiencing dementia as a result of her compromised liver.