Posts Tagged ‘Empowering Women’
Hope in the Margins
On International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, we asked Brooke Sulahian, Founder of Hope for Our Sisters, to help us learn more about this tragic injury and the ways in which it might be prevented, treated, and healed.
In June 2010, I read about fistula for the first time. That day, God allowed my heart to break, and my life was forever changed.
For the many of you that have not heard of fistula, let me take a moment to explain the nature and causes of this horrific injury. Obstetric and traumatic fistula presents as a hole between the tissues of the vaginal canal and bladder, vaginal canal and rectum or all three. As a result, women with fistula constantly leak urine, feces or both. Many are shunned and abandoned by their husbands, families and communities. An estimated 2-5 million women worldwide suffer from fistula due to obstructed labor (76-97% of fistula cases), trauma (usually caused by violent rape) or medical error.
Many Americans have never heard of fistula, because it is a condition that is nearly obsolete in the developed world. However, it is a huge problem in developing nations where poverty, malnourishment, early marriage and pregnancy, low education levels, political unrest, use of violent assault as a weapon and lack of access to adequate medical care all contribute to the occurrence of fistula.
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of fistula is the ostracization it causes. Women with fistula are made to believe that they have no value and contribute nothing to their community, larger society or the world. In 90% of obstetric fistula cases, the unborn baby will die. Yet rather than receiving the comfort and love of family during this time, these precious women and girls created in God’s image, are pushed to the margins of society in their loss, and fistula keeps them there.
After first reading about fistula, I envisioned isolated women suffering without dignity or hope. And yes, this is the tragic case for many women with fistula. However, recent trips to Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) challenged this view as I witnessed the dignity, hope, strength and courage of fistula survivors.
While traveling with World Relief in the DRC, I met my first survivors of rape, many with traumatic fistula. Their stories told of their miraculous transformation, from a desire to die to the desire to live, hopelessness to hope and a lack of dignity to a belief in their priceless value in God. Here was strength and courage in the margins.
In Angola, I witnessed Maria put on earrings before we took her picture. I witnessed Celia, battling an infected colostomy, surprise us with smiles, jokes and confidence. Here was hope and dignity where I believed it could not be found!
We cannot let fistula destroy this dignity, hope, strength and courage. Instead, I believe that our investment of hope, love, prayer and resources will eventually defeat fistula, so that the next generation of girls in developing nations won’t have to face such a life of loss.
At Hope for Our Sisters, we began by funding fistula surgeries and will continue to do so. However, we know that treatment is not enough. We want to invest in our sisters before they become injured and prevent fistulas before they are created. Our answer? Prevention, treatment and empowerment.
Obstetric and traumatic fistula is 100% preventable. And though prevention can be hard to measure, it has the potential for lasting impact. Preventative measures are everything from education and awareness, to prenatal care, to proper nutrition, to assisted delivery, and help covering the costs of each of these treatments. At Hope for our Sisters, we partner with World Relief and other organizations to meet these needs.
In cases where prevention is sadly no longer an option, women suffering from fistula need a variety of interventions and treatments to help restore them to health and wholeness. We help to fund fistula surgeries to restore these women to their optimal physical health status, as well as creating empowerment programs that are key to repairing some of the psychological trauma associated with suffering from fistula. Marketable skills, such as sewing items or weaving baskets to sell in the local markets, equip women to contribute to their families and communities while rediscovering a sense of value.
We are also very proud to partner with World Relief on their Sexual Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) program. These groups provide our beautiful sisters with much-needed community, assistance with owning and sharing their stories, opportunities to give back by providing for women who join the groups and the encouragement to help change their culture one step at a time. SGBV groups teach communities across the DRC that all women have inherent value, no matter their circumstances.
We at Hope for Our Sisters and our partners at World Relief see our sisters’ priceless value. We see the lives they could be living and the contributions they could be making. We envision a world where women are valued, live to their fullest potential, and are positive change-agents within their communities.
Together, we can bring God’s precious daughters out of the margins and back into fullness of life.
Brooke Sulahian – Following a successful thirteen-year career in Human Resources and four years as a stay-at-home mom, Brooke’s eyes were opened to the plight of women and girls around the world who lacked access to medical care and suffered from, or were at risk, for fistula. As a result, she co-founded a volunteer group in October of 2010, which led to the founding of Hope for Our Sisters, Inc. in January of 2012. She is driven by her belief in the inherent value of each person and her hope that women and girls around the world will one day be fully cherished and valued by their families and communities, as God intended. Brooke lives in the Boston area with her husband and two children.
Thanking God for A Mother’s Love
During a recent children’s sermon, our pastor asked a dozen elementary students: “What do you like best about your mom?” Their comments brought down the house! We heard how their mom, “put the head back on my Ninjago;” “scared away the monster under my bed;” “put my brother in timeout for hitting me;” “made my favorite cake for my birthday.” Jumping in, our pastor then said, “That is how God loves each of you. God is near when you’re frightened, or ill or afraid. God is always ready to listen to you and help you.”
Our children seemed convinced that God loves us like a mother, but the rest of us hesitated. How often do we consciously remind ourselves of God’s nearness and intimate attentiveness to our hopes and fears? Or that God is above gender yet inclusive of all gender—the source of what is true and good in humankind? That God created both male and female in God’s image, and that God’s fullness can only be expressed and fully appreciated in the fullness of genders, which God declared, is very good (Genesis 1:27, 31). While Mother’s Day can be painful for the childless and motherless alike, as well as the socially isolated, everyone can be comforted by God’s love.
Like a mother, God patiently suffers beside us in our fears and failures, nurtures our hopes and sustains us through every trial. That is why Mother’s Day is not only a time to give thanks for our earthly mothers, but also to remember that our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, like a cheek-to-cheek mother, knows us intimately and willingly suffers any cost to comfort, strengthen and guide us.
While Scripture teaches that God is Spirit (John 4:25) and warns against creating earthly images of God (Exodus 20:4), it also teaches that “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15-21). Christ cooked for the disciples (John 21:9); washed their feet (John 13:8); healed the ill (Luke 8:40-48); and wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). Despite the disapproval of his disciples, Christ also honored mothers and women by welcoming them as disciples, inviting them to sit at his feet and learn from Him—a privilege that was previously reserved for men only (Luke 10:38-42). Christ prepared women as evangelists and proclaimers of the Good News (John 20:17). And when a woman was caught in adultery, Jesus invited those without sin to cast the first stone (John 8:1-11). Women’s dignity and leadership was implicit in Christ’s teachings, practices and in his challenges to the marginalization of women.
Elevating mothers and women, Christ used motherly metaphors to illustrate and amplify God’s nearness, providence and tenacious protection. In warning against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Jesus displayed a mother’s heart that longingly protects her children, but wisely allows them free choices despite the pain God suffers when they choose unwisely. Like a mother, God cried out: “‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing,” (Matt. 23:37b).
Just as the father waited for his prodigal son, God also searches for us, God’s lost sheep, like the woman who lost a priceless coin. Unwilling to rest, she lights her lamp and furiously sweeps the house, searching in every corner until she finds her lost treasure. And, just like the father who celebrates when his prodigal son returns home, the woman also delights when she finds her priceless coin. She “calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” (Matthew 23: 9-10).
God’s work is inseparable from the hands and feet of mothers, and of the women who proactively proclaim the gospel in word and deed. Because Scripture speaks of God in both fatherly and motherly terms, we recognize that both qualities are necessary to strengthen our lives and nurture our souls. In remembering our mothers, we celebrate God who created women and mothers, and loves us like a mother. God’s motherly love is always ready to fight to the end, rather than be separated from her own flesh, just as a mother bear protects her cubs (Hosea 13:8).
On Mother’s Day we take comfort in knowing that, whatever our failures, hopes or fears, like a mother, God will move heaven and earth to reach us, heal us, lead us and comfort us.
God, thank you for loving me, and all of us, also as a mother.
Dr. Mimi Haddad is president of CBE International. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (Summa Cum Laude). She holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England.
How We Can Make Room for Women
In January, World Relief co-hosted a consultation on “Development, Gender, and Christianity” with Wheaton College and the Imago Dei Fund. Faith-based non-profit staff, church leaders, advocacy experts and academics gathered together to discern why—despite greater awareness that investing in women is good for global development*—things aren’t improving for so many women around the world.
The wise women and men present had decades of collective experience with human trafficking, sexual abuse, women’s and children’s health and developing women as individuals and leaders[DN1] . Before we rolled up our sleeves and got to our important work, we allowed ourselves a moment to lament: “How much longer before every woman, created in the image of God, is free to express the image God has placed in her?”
Realities speak to the shrinking spaces women occupy in countries and communities around the world, even in our churches. Violence against women occurs in countries and communities around the world, and even in our churches. The recent #churchtoo movement proved what statistics already show—the rate of sexual and physical assaults in church communities isn’t less than in the rest of society. Globally, 1 in 3 women—churched or not—have a story to tell. White women in the US earn an average 82 cents to men’s dollar. But in many countries, the pay gap is even wider; women earn an average of only 60-75% of men’s wages despite the benefits a woman’s paycheck has to her family and community. Researchers estimate that this year 12 million girls and young women will marry before their 18th birthday, some as young as 10 years old.
Clearly, much work remains to be done.
As a little girl, my dad, a filmmaker, taught me about the “blue hour.” He would pine for this moment when, on a cloudless sky, the red of day and blue of night make room for one another, intersecting to create an irresistible quality of light.
Light is not at its most beautiful at midday or midnight, but rather, at the moment when one is making room for the other. The “blue hour” echoes a lesson we find over and over in Scripture: we are to love and prefer one another; we are to make room for one another.
The woman with the issue of blood had no room among the crowd. Rejected by her community—unclean and unwanted—she had to work hard to get to Jesus, to reach out her hand and touch the hem of his garment. Without even turning, Jesus knew that this woman needed his help. He was her last and only hope. Jesus does not turn away from her need because of her status. Instead, Jesus makes room.
In Luke 22: 25 – 27, Jesus declared: “The kings of the Gentiles rule over their subjects… But I am among you as one who serves.” The King of kings did not come to recline at the table, but to kneel and wash the feet of his disciples. Likewise, Jesus did not come to uphold hierarchies but to break down centuries of injustice.
Jesus comes to us today too, to break down power structures in our communities, to elevate those society overlooks, and to make room for women.
All around us, women are defying the odds. Like the woman who longed to be healed, they’re pressing through crowds toward health and safety for themselves and their children, toward education and into board rooms and pulpits. Some are too tired to press through the crowds. Many don’t see a way through anymore and it is our responsibility to press toward them.
Men and women—working side by side—can transform the role and experience of women in our societies. The idea of elevating women may be threatening, but men actually benefit when women are empowered to lead. When women and men collaborate in decision-making, households, communities, and institutions become more productive and inclusive. Men’s relationships with their wives, children, and communities become more fulfilling. And, men are able to be who God is calling them to be instead of conforming to what society wants them to be.
We are not all called to become activists. But we can all co-labor toward this transformation in our own communities. It begins with responding to the invitation to think deeply about how we can create more room for women in the spaces we are already in.
At World Relief, we are committed to crafting new spaces for women to flourish. We are doing this in simple, tangible, daily ways—in our programming and throughout the organization.
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As the most vulnerable in most communities, women are impacted by our programming. We are working increasingly around metrics that measure maximum impact on women and girls to guide our program design.
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We recently signed the #SilenceIsNotSpiritual Statement in recognition that churches and Christian communities are not exempt from putting women at risk of sexual abuse. Our entire staff and leadership are participating in non-harassment training to ensure that male and female staff work side by side in an equitable, non-threatening way.
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We are intentionally creating opportunities for women leaders at World Relief. Along with others, we recognize the lack of women in top tiers of leadership in the entire faith-based NGO sector as a problem, and are taking practical steps to correct it within our own organization.
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We are continuing to partner with the Wheaton consultation and other collaborations. Much remains to be learned about the important roles women must play at all levels of communities and organizations, and we welcome the opportunity to learn and grow with other development organizations.
We can each do one thing today to elevate a girl or woman. Perhaps this means stepping aside and giving some of our space to her. The question is: are we willing to make room?
* “Aid programs that provide women opportunities to better their health, education, and well-being have effects far beyond a single individual. A woman multiplies the impact of an investment made in her future by extending benefits to the world around her, creating a better life for her family and building a strong community.” (USAID: https://www.usaid.gov/infographics/50th/why-invest-in-women )
Eeva Simard is the Project Director of Human Capital at World Relief. For the past ten years, she’s worked with multiple non-profits, where she has been committed to excellence in project management and communication, common sense leadership and the empowerment and training of colleagues, particularly helping women’s voices be heard at top levels of leadership.
For the Women (feat. Amena Brown)
It’s International Women’s Day!
This year, we say “Thank God for Women” not only with our words but with our commitment to create a better world for women—a world where every woman and girl has the dignity, opportunity and security she deserves.
We’re incredibly grateful to author and spoken word poet Amena Brown, who wrote an original piece entitled For The Women. We invite you to watch and share this video as widely as possible, inviting others to join the dance and fight for justice.
Love Bears All Things
This is Fatima, a 30-year-old Afghan woman and a mother of four. On the first day of World Relief Seattle’s inaugural Women’s Sewing Class, Fatima clutched her pencil and laboriously copied her name on a pre-test. She had gotten her children ready for school, walked nearly a mile to the bus stop and arrived at her first official class—EVER.
The Formation of The Sewing Program
In 2016, World Relief conducted a focus group with recently-arrived Afghan families in Seattle, WA. In it, we discovered that while many of the Afghan men are well-educated and fluent in English, most of the women, like Fatima, are pre-literate, meaning they cannot read or write in their own language. In Afghanistan, where women are culturally bound to stay at home surrounded by friends and family, this presents few issues. Isolated and alone in a new nation, and unable to communicate with others, however, this tradition was hugely damaging to these newly arrived women who were clearly suffering, and in some cases even struggling with depression.
Husbands in the focus group identified this isolation as an insurmountable challenge and sadness, and wanted an opportunity for their wives to participate in activities with other women. As we brainstormed solutions together, the group raised the idea of sewing. As we talked through the potential of a vocational ESL and skill-building sewing program, we realized that not only would it give the women the opportunity to learn new skills that are prized culturally, but that it could also pave the way for them to learn English and join together in community with other refugee women, supported by one another.
The barriers to developing a sewing program however, seemed insurmountable. Where would we find volunteer teachers, sewing machines and adequate space to provide a sewing class for this especially vulnerable group of women? How would we address the issues of transportation and childcare?
Enter Jeanine Boyle.
Jeanine attends Hillside Church, a partner of World Relief Seattle, and is also a national educator for the Singer Sewing Machine company. Three years earlier, Jeanine had felt strongly about starting a sewing class for women. She asked her company for some donations and received ten sewing machines for her class at a local non-profit, yet sadly the logistical issues did not work out. Consequently, Jeanine had 10 machines sitting in her garage.
With the help of Hillside Church and other volunteers, we cleared out space at the church that could be used for a sewing classroom, with an adjoining room for childcare. Two retired members of the church with carpentry experience helped to build four beautifully designed cutting tables, saving several thousand dollars. Our English (ELS) teachers at World Relief helped design the English portions of the class. And Jeanine, with her vast sewing education experience, developed a sewing curriculum. Volunteers came from churches all over, and in February 2017 we enrolled our first cohort of students.
For many of the volunteers this would be the first time they had ever interacted with refugee women, especially Muslim women. Even Jeanine herself had deep reservations about this new experience.
“My life did not include any contact with anyone of the Muslim faith. I had a lot of apprehensions about starting this whole journey. I had a fear of what I did not know. But teaching this class has been a life changing experience. I love these women.”
For highly skilled volunteers like Jeanine, this service is a sacrificial labor of love. Jeanine owns an interior design business and has to juggle her extremely busy business schedule to spend time teaching and preparing for the sewing classes. Yet Jeanine is motivated by love, and by her desire to help bear the burdens of these women, coming alongside them in support.
Debra Voelker, Missions Director at Hillside Church, also volunteers by managing the day-to-day operational details of the class. Debra drives over an hour to volunteer each week.
Like Jeanine, Debra realizes the burden these women face and seeks to ease it through love. She drives long distances and coordinates the many time consuming details each week in a tireless effort to foster and preserve the gift of life-giving relationships for these women.
“I’ve realized that women are women – wherever they are from. Our life circumstances are vastly different, but we have the same concerns – wanting to create a loving home for our families, wanting to provide for our kids, the joy of being in a safe community, and sharing with like-minded women,” Debra says.
Mutual Transformation
The impact of our sewing program has been transformative. Many of the volunteers, including both Jeanine and Debra, have been invited into the homes of the participants and have reciprocated in kind. The sharing of food and friendship outside of class has formed lasting bonds. It has been a beautiful and mutually transformative journey for all the women involved.
Several weeks ago, I ran into Fatima at the local grocery store. She called out my name and we enthusiastically greeted each other in the bulk section. She asked about my children, my husband and my health. We compared our carts and asked each other what we were going to cook. We hugged goodbye and I got a little teary eyed as I reflected on the power of a simple conversation, which wouldn’t have been possible even five months before without the investment of amazing volunteers like Jeanine and Debra.
Yet our sewing program is just one example. Whether it be in the classrooms of Hillside Church, in local community gardens, in hospital waiting rooms, in social security lines, or simply in our living rooms at home, the loving relationships between our volunteers and newly arrived refugees and immigrants has been a joy to witness.
Jeanine and Debra’s story is one of so many, and it’s hard to put their dedication and sacrifice into words. We have volunteers who have sacrificed friendships and even jobs as they’ve embraced God’s call to welcome the stranger, put their love into action, and lighten the burden of others. Oftentimes they are fearful. Oftentimes they are reluctant. Oftentimes it just seems too difficult. Yet they listen, they trust, and the fruits are transformative not only for those they serve, but also for them. It is an example that inspires, and one that should encourage each one of us as we think about how we might continue to live lives of love in the year ahead.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” – Galatians 6:2
Through the end of the year, we’ll be featuring stories of individuals and communities putting Love in Action—bringing hope to the hurting and shining light in the darkest hours.
Learn more and put your Love in Action today.
Tahmina Martelly serves at the Programs Manager for World Relief Seattle. Originally from Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tahmina lived in Yemen before arriving at a farm in Idaho. A registered dietitian by education, Tahmina has worked with refugee and immigrant resiliency projects for the last 25 years. Most recently, she taught at the University of Utah, division of Nutrition and developed and taught computer literacy classes at the Utah Refugee Education Center. Tahmina has been with World Relief Seattle since 2017 overseeing the new resiliency project multiplier and managing state-funded employment and case management programs.
When a Refugee Child’s Education Stops
While living in the south Asian country of Bhutan, Pabi’s family was forced to flee their home due to political and ethnic persecution. At a young age, Pabi became a refugee. And like many refugee children, Pabi’s education risked coming to a halt. When her family fled to nearby Nepal, Pabi received some education, but the conditions of the school proved too harsh for her to flourish.
Eventually, the UN selected Pabi’s family for resettlement in the United States—specifically in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. As World Relief’s Dupage/Aurora office began to resettle Pabi’s family, staff and volunteers carefully considered how they could help provide Pabi with the tools she needed to thrive in her education.
Pabi was only in 5th grade when she began schooling in the U.S. She remembers not being able to speak English and feeling fearful. “It was really scary, and I was worried every day,” Pabi recalls. “For a month I cried every night because students were not nice. I used to cry under the blanket so my parents couldn’t find out that I was crying.”
Thankfully, Pabi was able to join World Relief’s after-school program at an area church where she quickly found friends and academic assistance. She also befriended Nepali students, who were in higher level classes in school and helped her quickly learn English.
With a strengthened foundation because of the support Pabi received in the after school program, Pabi was poised to flourish in her academic pursuits. She continued to excel throughout middle school and high school. In fact, her academic achievement has resulted in a college scholarship through philanthropist Bob Carr’s Give Something Back Foundation (GSBF); Pabi was selected as only one of seven scholarship winners out of over 40 applicants. The scholarship, along with government financial aid, will allow Pabi to attend college tuition-free.
Pabi’s education could have ended the day she and her family fled Bhutan. But by the grace of God, Pabi’s tireless efforts and the help of World Relief and partner churches, Pabi will become the first in her family to attend college and is now filled with hope for her bright future.
Pabi’s story is one of many. Around the world, World Relief has made it a priority to partner with local churches and organizations to provide safe spaces for refugee children to continue learning, especially when formal education is not a viable option. In the U.S., we help newly arriving refugee families enroll in schools, provide school supplies to children and conduct after-school tutoring—ensuring that refugee children like Pabi can not only restart their education but thrive at every level. You can play a critical role in supporting refugees like Pabi through the work of World Relief.
Join us as we invest in the future of refugees around the world.
“I will not forget you, God has placed you in my heart.”
Some time ago I spent a week in a Middle Eastern country visiting with Syrian refugees. Day after day on that trip, I sat on concrete floors in crumbling urban apartments with Syrian women and their children. Each time I looked into the women’s faces, their empty eyes told the silent stories of losses and grief.
In Syria, these women had been comfortable, middle class women, just living their day-to-day lives. Then suddenly, one day, they were running for their lives. They had watched their friends and family members die. They had seen their communities exploding, literally. So they did the only thing they could. They grabbed their kids and crossed country borders in the middle of the night, sometimes with bullets chasing them, in search of some kind of future. In search of some kind of hope.
Fortunately, many of those women ended up safely in the neighborhood where I was visiting, where a church I knew very well was providing food and basic necessities for these refugee families. On the last day of my visit, the pastor asked if I would speak to 200 of these women. He explained how they came to the church once a week to get bags of food and to let their children play in a safe place. While the children played, the mothers attended meetings where they’d learn how to deal with grief, how to help with their children’s trauma, and how to adapt to a new culture.
With the help of a Palestinian Christian friend who translated my words into Arabic, this is what I said to the women:
“I wish I didn’t have to stand up here in front of you. I would much rather sit beside you on a cushion on the floor and have a cup of tea with you. I would love to snuggle your baby in my arms. And I would love to hear your story. I know you each have a sad story, and if I heard it, I know I would weep. I know you are good and loving women. And I’m sorry you have lost so much. I am sorry you had to flee to a country, a city, and a house that’s not your own.
I can imagine in your own country, you were strong women who graciously served others.
I can imagine you making delicious food and sharing it with your family and friends.
I can imagine you caring for your mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, sisters and brothers and friends, just like I do.”
That’s what women do. We are compassionate. We give. We serve, protect, and work hard to make the world better for the people we love.
Wherever I go in the world, I discover we women are a lot a like. We may have different clothes, hair, religion, culture or skin color, but in our hearts we are the same. That’s why we can look into each other’s eyes and feel connected. We can talk without using words. We can smile, we can hug, we can laugh. And sometimes we can feel each other’s pain. While I was with those women, I prayed that God would help me feel their pain. And oh how I wished I could remove it, or help them carry it.
“Your Faith Has Healed You”
I told the women gathered before me that while I prayed for them the night before, I was reminded of the story in the Gospel about the woman who had been sick for many years. No one could heal her body or comfort her mind. People had given up on her and were ignoring her. But she believed Jesus could heal her if she could just touch his robe. So she pushed silently through the crowd that followed Jesus. She was afraid he would turn her away if he saw her, so she stayed quietly in the shadows. Finally, she reached out and touched his robe.
Immediately he stopped, “Who touched me?” He asked.
“Power has flowed out of me and I want to know who touched me.”
She was afraid, certain he was angry and would punish her, but she felt compelled to answer, “It was me. I am the one who touched you!”
The crowd hushed, anxious to see what this great man would do.
Jesus simply looked into her eyes and said, “Daughter your faith is great. Your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
I told the women that when I read that story I wondered why Jesus stopped and made that frightened women speak up, and I prayed for God to help me understand.
This is why I think Jesus stopped: I believe Jesus wanted that woman to know he saw her.
She wasn’t just an anonymous person in a huge crowd. She was an individual woman and he saw her.
Jesus knew she was suffering and it broke his heart. He called her daughter so she would understand how much he loved her. He said she had great faith in her God and he honored her for it. And he healed the wounds of her body and soul.
As a Christian, I believe Jesus shows us what God is like. He shows us that God sees each of us as individuals. He calls us sons and daughters because he loves us. He honors our faith because he knows it can make us strong. He cares when we suffer. He wants to bring healing, comfort, and peace into our lives. Some verses in Scripture even tell us that Jesus weeps, which means that God weeps, too. He weeps for all of His suffering children.
“I Will Not Forget You”
Then I looked at the women seated before me and said this,
“I wish I could end the war that’s ravaging your country. I wish I could gather all the money in the world to make your lives easier. I wish I could bring back all that you have lost. I can’t do any of that, but I can do this: I can go home and tell others what I’ve seen. I can tell people how you are suffering and how amazing Christians are lovingly walking with you. Both you and your Christian friends need the prayers and support of Americans. And I will tell my friends that.
“I will also tell my friends how beautiful, strong, and loving you are. I will tell them you are women of deep faith, women who adore your children and grandchildren, just the same way I adore mine. Women who sacrifice willingly for those that they love.
“I will tell them that when I look into your eyes, I see that we are all a part of the same human family, all created and loved by God. I will not forget you. I will pray for you. I will tell your stories. I will weep when I hear anew of your suffering, and I will rejoice over any goodness that comes your way.
“Truly I will not forget you. God has placed you in my heart.”
It was over three years ago that I met those women. Since then I have told their stories many times. They and their stories continue to break my heart, but they also compel me to action.
One final story has impacted me greatly…
After their home was destroyed by rockets, Hana and her children fled Syria to relative safety in a neighboring country. There they found leaders like Saeed and Clara providing help and hope for refugee children. I hope that as you watch, their story inspires you as much as it inspired me.
More than 80% of the beneficiaries of our programs are women and children. World Relief works through local churches to protect, celebrate, and raise the value of women by taking a holistic approach—addressing immediate needs and harmful belief systems simultaneously. Learn how you can join us and create a better world for women.
Since 1975, when Lynne & Bill Hybels started Willow Creek Community Church, Lynne has been an active volunteer in the compassion ministries of the church. She has served with ministry partners in Chicago, Latin America, Africa, and more recently in the Middle East. Increasingly, Lynne is partnering with women in conflict zones who are committed to reconciliation, peacemaking, caring for refugees, and creating a better future for their children. Lynne is actively engaged with a grassroots organization, One Million Thumbprints, which raises awareness and funds for women suffering from the violence of war in Syria and Iraq, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In recent years she has traveled repeatedly to the Middle East to meet with Syrian refugees, Iraqis displaced by ISIS, and Israeli and Palestinian women working for security, dignity, and peace for all the people living in the Holy Land. Lynne and Bill have two grown children, Shauna and Todd, one son-in-law, Aaron Niequist, and two grandsons, Henry and Mac, who run the family.
Thank God for Women — Calling All Women
Photo by Marianne Bach
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
Listen, women. It’s been a particularly difficult year. The assaults, insults, and violence towards women in this country and around the world have been devastatingly awful.
Yet, the power, strength, beauty, and creativity found in women continues to rise. I’ve noticed women all around me, called by God, for purposes beyond themselves can’t be contained or shut down. Pastors, politicians, musicians, athletes rising, rising, rising, as they add love and justice and peace and beauty into the world.
Earlier this year, I started a new church — it’s called Sunday Supper Church — because I had heard from God that this is who He made me to be, and that it was time for me to lean into my calling, and follow Him as He made something great. I felt unqualified, insecure, and scared. But God’s gentle voice reminded me day-after-day, that we were in this together, and that because He had made me to do this, He wouldn’t leave or forget to help me.
Because when the call of God is clear, you can’t wait to start. You can’t wait for the day you don’t feel scared. You have to start scared. You can’t wait for permission, or for the negative internal voices to be silenced. You have to start without permission, while the doubtful voices continue to shout inside. You have to create and lead as God intended, because the world needs you and your unique, one-of-a-kind offering.
Women, the world needs us to lead as God intended, specifically in this difficult time, to lead with strength and wisdom and compassion. To stand tall and proud while doing our thing, unwilling to turn back.
As women, we might never have full permission to engage: in church, in our communities, in politics, or in the corporate world. But we’re going to lead anyway––overcoming withheld permission and our internal fears––because our permission to engage and lead comes from our Father. The one in whose image we are equally made.
Because that’s the thing about women.
They are brave and unstoppable, resembling their Maker.
I thank God for this unquenchable, courageous spirit in women.
If God has called you to do something—start a new church, open a business, start a family, travel the world, argue cases in court, train to be an elite athlete, do it! If you’re waiting for the right moment, enough money, everyone’s approval, the system to change, you’re going to be waiting a super long time. Don’t wait. Do your thing.
I thank God for women. Strong, brave, creative, unstoppable women.
Amy Dolan is Pastor of Sunday Supper Church, a new, table-based dinner environment in Chicago that seeks to gather diverse communities together for the sake of creating peace + justice in the city.
Connect with Amy on social! Twitter: @adolan | Instagram @_adolan
Thank God for Women — Thank God for My Mum
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
My mother was raised in a religious family. She taught me and my three siblings the basics of Christianity and taught us to love people around us. When my father died on the battlefield, my mother was there for us, uniting us as a family—loving and caring for each other even though we had hard times. As a single parent, it was never easy for my mother to provide everything but she made sure we had what we needed.
For many years, my mum worked endlessly to see that my siblings and I got the best education, all while looking for jobs that would sustain us as the needs of our family increased. We always had people from different backgrounds staying with us, and my siblings and I couldn’t understand why. As time went by I came to realize that my mum was always friendly and hospitable to everyone that came by. She wanted to give the best of her time to them.
After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi occurred, my mother and I moved from Uganda back to Rwanda (where she was born) to get a more stable life—my siblings stayed behind to finish school. For 6 years, we went back and forth between Uganda and Rwanda to visit my siblings because I missed them. I once asked her why she had brought me alone along with her and left my siblings behind. She told me that “I love you so much and your siblings can’t be with us now, but I love them very much too.” It wasn’t long before we were reunited with them for good. In the meantime, my mother had found a job as a nurse at a clinic in Kigali. The school I went to was close to the clinic and after school, I would meet her at work and we would walk home together.
The nature of my mother’s relationship with me was not only of a child and a parent but also of a friend and confidant. She encouraged me and made me feel important to her. This made me a very confident person.
Along the way, my mother found salvation and she found new meaning and purpose in life. Life as a single parent was never easy for her, she was constantly striving hard to make ends meet—the weight of that was often heavy. With Jesus in her life, she was so much happier and full of hope because she had found faith.
In 2002, my mother started working with World Relief Rwanda, which at the time was helping people to understand and accept living positively with individuals who were HIV positive. She endeavored to get to know and establish relationships with them, so they could trust her and accept her teachings. As a result of her counseling and spiritual mentoring, these individuals were able to reunite and live in harmony with other people, which wasn’t the case before because a stigma had isolated them. The more she worked and the longer she stayed with them, the more my mother got closer to the most vulnerable.
The more I saw my mum go every week to spend hours and days with suffering people, the more I learned from the stories she shared about her experience. She always reminded me that even if it doesn’t feel like you have enough to give to the most vulnerable, physically being with them, praying with them and socializing with them provided relief and community for them. For over 15 years, she has always been an advocate of the most vulnerable, and most especially for women in the community.
In 2007, I joined a program called Choose Life at my high school to receive training to then train my peers in the community. I was excited for this opportunity because I was able to reach out to my fellow youth, and because of the stories my mother would tell me about serving the most vulnerable.
I thank God for my mum and her lifelong impact. Because of her I went on to study Computer Science in college where my passion to serve the vulnerable grew stronger and led me to pursue my second degree in Community Work and Development. She has influenced me to pursue the work I am doing today.
Bob Allan Karemera is World Relief Rwanda Strategic Partnership Officer for more than 4 years. In his role, he coordinates relationships with with seven church partners and donors, connecting and engaging them in meaningful ways to WR Rwanda’s work. With a degree from Mount Kenya University in Kigali in Social Work and Administration, Bob further developed his passion for community work.
Thank God for Women — A Conversation with Courtney O’Connell
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
After living and working in South Africa and Zambia, Courtney O’Connell came to World Relief in 2011. With a master’s degree in International Development from Eastern University, Courtney took on the role of Savings for Life (SFL) Senior Program Advisor, supporting program staff in the nine countries where World Relief implements SFL. She loves living in Rwanda, close to where Savings for Life is being implemented, and when she’s not working, Courtney can be found running and biking throughout Rwanda’s beautiful countryside. Recently, Cassidy Stratton, World Relief’s Marketing Coordinator, had an opportunity to catch up with Courtney to hear how she’s seen World Relief’s Savings for Life program empower women around the world:
Cassidy Stratton: You noted that you had already lived in Africa for 3 years. How did you specifically get connected to World Relief?
Courtney O’Connell: When I was job searching, I knew I wanted to do economic development in Africa with a Christian organization, and so I just went to some of the big names that I could immediately think of. World Relief actually had my current position posted, so without even thinking, or even proofreading, I submitted my resume. And, by the grace of God, I got it.
In my previous work overseas, I had seen organizations that claimed to be Christian on the website, and when I went to the field to see their programs, there was actually nothing Christian about them. And I was not sure if World Relief was like that since I had not seen them overseas. So I reached out to a professor of mine who was writing a book for which Stephen Bauman, the president of World Relief at that time, was submitting a chapter. She forwarded me Stephen’s chapter, which was all about working with the church and the heart and soul of what World Relief is about. As I read it, I said “Man, that sounds really good! And if they are who they say they are then I would totally be in..”
As I left the U.S., I thought, “I’m not selling my car until they prove that they are who they say they are.” Not that my car was nice; it was my Grandma’s hand-me-down Buick. Well, I moved to Rwanda in July of 2011. And I immediately, I fell in love with the way we do our work. Everything Stephen wrote about was true. There truly is a partnership with the local church, and the desire is to see the local church shine, not the organization. And to really infuse and integrate biblical beliefs into programs. To me, that was so unique. I was, and still am, thrilled to be a part of an organization that cares for the vulnerable in the way we do.
CS: Can you tell me more about your current position?
CO: I am the Savings for Life Senior Program Advisor—a program that forms community-based savings groups, where people pool their own money together in order to give loans to each other, charging interest. And after a set period of time—approximately 9 – 12 months—everyone takes back the savings they had put in, plus the portion of interest that they earned. So then it’s a very useful amount of money that a family can use to pay for school fees, invest in their farm, start a business, repair their house and the like. The best thing is that it is all their own money. It’s not like a loan from a bank. And when they go home at the end of this cycle for savings, they have in their hands probably the most amount of money that they’ve ever had at one time. It’s such an empowering program, and it’s great to be a part of it.
World Relief is running this program in 10 countries, and my role is to work alongside the program managers and field staff that are actually running the program. My role is to support them, help set strategies, prepare proposals, and make sure they have all of the tools to run a successful program. It’s cool for me because I get to be pretty close to the action, and I get to walk alongside the staff, the real heroes who are doing the work. Sometimes I feel like a cheerleader, cheering the programs along and helping teams to see what’s possible.
CS: What role have you seen women play in the Savings for Life Program?
CO: In most of the context where we’re working, the women are the glue of the society. They are the strong one’s in the family who make things happen. Unfortunately in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional gender roles are that the men are the ones who make all of the important household financial decisions and are the controllers of the money. The women are the ones who are tasked to provide for the family on a daily basis, yet they don’t have a lot of authority or even their own money to make things happen.
We hear a lot of testimonies from women saying that it’s embarrassing because they have to go and—they use the word “beg”—their husband in order to get money to buy salt, buy oil, etc. in order to prepare food. If she can’t prepare food then she is not doing her gender role. But in order to do her role within the family, she actually has to ask her husband for help. So it’s this huge power dynamic struggle.
The Savings for Life program worldwide is 80% women. And we see that women are the ones that benefit from this. They say now they do not have to beg their husbands because they can provide for themselves. They have this glow about them—this empowerment, this hope—because they feel like they are now doing the role that they are designed to do. Not only that, but they are also starting new businesses and paying school fees for their children, all things that had only been a dream before.
CS: Can you recall a specific success story of a Savings for Life group?
CO: I remember visiting a savings group at the beginning of their savings cycle, and they said to me, “We’re just poor people and can’t save, so can you give us money?” And then I actually went to visit that same group 9 months later when they were having the day of distribution. They literally had a table mounted with money. You could just see the joy, the hope, the empowerment, the confidence beaming out of them. And they were able to say, “This is our money, and no one helped us do this.” To me, this is what we’re here for. That’s the success. When people say that we can set our own goals and no one else has to do it for us.
CS: Is there a specific woman that has impacted your work?
CO: Another story I want to tell you about is about a woman named Adele. She lives in Burundi, one of the poorest countries where we work. It’s a beautiful country and has a lot of resources, but it also has a lot of poverty and corruption. Adele lives way out in the middle of a village, and Savings for Life comes that way, and she decides that she is going to join. During her first cycle of savings, she was able to buy a goat. This was the very first goat that her family owned. A goat out in the village is first a huge status and second a long-term savings. She was so happy to buy this goat. And by the second cycle of the savings program, she was able to buy a cow. Her family was able to use this cow to plow their fields. The savings group was impacting multiple areas of her life.
A few years after she joined the savings group, the community staff member approached her and asked if she could be a volunteer for Savings for Life, and she accepted. She got trained on how to be a volunteer village agent, and then she went out and started other training groups. Now she’s working in her own community and neighboring communities, helping to teach other people about this program that has been so impacting for her.
CS: How have you seen the savings groups also serve as support groups?
CO: The social aspect of the groups really help. There was a woman in a savings group that became a widow. She ended up moving back to her family, but she had a lot of relational problems and it wasn’t healthy for her stay in the household that she grew up in. And so her savings group actually built her a house. It was their own initiative. World Relief was not part of it at all. It was that this group of women cared for each other so much that they saw their sister in need and did something about it.
To me that is just really powerful how the social aspect of the savings group helps the women walk alongside each other to achieve their goals financially. And to just have social capital and strength. It helps relationships go way deeper.
CS: Have there been any women in your life that have influenced your work and the way you engage with women around the world?
CO: The small group that I’m a part of. There are women here in Rwanda that we meet on a weekly basis to walk through life together. There are challenges of living abroad, and being away from your home culture, and sometimes there are just frustration of life, and to be with other people who you know want the best for you and care about you and ask how they can help you. I have been impacted by that and have found a lot of solidarity and strength from these women.
I liken that to the solidarity and strength other women can get from their Savings for Life group.
CS: Why do you Thank God for Women?
CO: I thank God for women because I see the strength that they provide for their families and the hope that they provide for their children. Women are the ones in the family that are able to change course. Their family might have been living in poverty for generations and generations, but if a woman has hope, and has the confidence and the empowerment, then she can change that course for the generations to come.
And I think the real strength in rural communities, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, are the women who are holding everything together, making changes for their families and their kids. I think women are the changemakers in our world.
Give today to create a better world for women.
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