For the past 4 days I’ve had the immense privilege of representing Cred at the strategic development review for Women At Risk, one of our partners working in Ethiopia.
W.A.R. works with prostitutes, reaching out to them on the streets and running rehabilitation programmes for the ladies, including counselling, discipleship, skills training, health support and child-care. Their success rate is that 90% of the ladies who go through the year long rehab programme do not return to the streets and pursue better lives for themselves and their children.
I have spent time with a few of the W.A.R.team before when leading Cred team trips to run activity weeks as part of their children work summer camps and I had always been very touched and impacted on those occasions at the love and compassion of the W.A.R.team members towards the children of the prostitutes that we worked with. So many of the children themselves have been through awful traumas, as well as all that their mums have been through, and yet the unconditional acceptance, value and care shown to the children is second to none.
These past few days, all of the W.A.R. team were present, from Cherry the founder, through all the leadership team to those involved in outreach, skills training, discipleship, children's work and all other aspects of the work, plus the driver, the lady who does the cooking and anyone else who is part of the team in any way.
Seeing them working together, there was no evidence of any sort of hierarchy and everyone participated in the discussions and group work with equal voice and equal passion to seek the way forwards for the organisation, that they might better support a group within society who are treated with such contempt and disgust by so many, and by others as little more than an object with which to satisfy their own distorted lustful needs.
Some of the discussions about why prostitution occurs in Ethiopia were very heated as different team members spoke from the heart. Some were speaking from the many testimonies they've heard given by ladies who have passed through the rehab programme, and some were speaking from their own experience as ex-prostitutes who now work on the staff of Women At Risk.
There were stories of abuse, stories of escaping being forced into a marriage to an old man whilst just an 8 or 9 year old girl, stories of poverty, of abduction and of trafficking.
So many examples of the cruelty of humankind and the vulnerability of girls and women in patriarchal societies.
The place where we all met was a beautiful place. Situated on the shores of a volcanic crater lake, it was a place of peace and tranquility - an oasis of rest and relaxation for the team, and a place that I was honoured to join them in.
The work they do is so so gritty and edgy and tough and emotionally draining and challenging and fulfilling.
It’s not something you can survive alone and these past few days have given a huge insight into the massively family-like and supportiveness that undergirds the organisation.
To be part of all this has been inspiring but also challenging.
At one point we were reminded of the words of Isaiah 58: 6-9:
“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
There is no doubt that the work of Women At Risk is fulfilling that call of God. Women are being set free from the captivity of prostitution, mouths are being fed, wounds healed and hope restored.
But what of us who aren't up against those issues on a daily basis? How much are we fasting in this way?
To fast is to give something up. What am I giving up in the pursuit of justice for others, here at home as well as overseas. Not food fasting but deeper than that? When God looks at my life does He see the right kind of fasting?
I'm still wrestling with what that fasting should look like in my life and for each of us it will have our own unique angle but I dare to suggest that for each of us there is something extra we can do in pursuit of the cry of God in Isaiah.
PS for those of you who like songs to meditate on, try Casting Crowns ‘Love Them Like Jesus’. I don't know the background to the song, but it fits really well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh2IRvavyms
No comments:
Post a Comment