India has been on my heart for 15 years, ever since the first time I stepped foot on the land. I don't bother to count the number of times I have traipsed up and down the length and breadth of India, south, north, east and west, venturing into her crowded cities or villages deep in the interior. Every trip I make causes me to appreciate so much more God's blessings in my life when I see the enormity of the needs of others who have so little. Jesus tells us, the poor we will always have with us. And that's so true. Whilst I admire the palatial mansions of the super-rich opposite the city hotel where we stayed, I cringe at the sight of dirty homeless children sitting on the side-walks of the roads just beyond. It humbles me, being made aware that really I can do nothing to help except to tell and keep telling, wherever I go, about a living Hope in One who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ever ask or even think, even and especially in the midst of suffering.
This latest trip was a sobering experience. It's one thing to hear about horror stories, but quite another to see real people involved in it. Real lives literally imprisoned by a culture and tradition so deeply engrained into a society that objectifies women. Actually of course it doesn't just happen in India, it happens all over the world, even in our own back-yard. Still it's sickening to know there are baby girls being 'traded off' at birth to be 'groomed' as prostitutes as they mature into womanhood.
We are told the girls are 'passed around' to so many men, they don't even know who are the fathers of the children they give birth to in the process. Of course they end up infected, abused and eventually abandoned. It's not just some random practice affecting a few girls ; it's deliberate, decreed as the 'destiny' of an entire community of females to satisfy the sexual lust of men, who actually believe young virgins will bring them prosperity in life. So the twisted cycle continues. And there is no way out once the girls are roped into the trade, for they are told they will be cursed for generations by god if they ever dare leave. Oh, the insidious evil lies perpetrated on those who have never had the chance to know the true God who is all love, whose plan for all womenkind is to prosper and never harm them.
But thank God there are men who will not stand for such cruelty and go all out to rescue such women from the darkness, hopelessness and helplessness of a life of slavery. We were taken to a remote village where by God's grace, the local church had started a centre to train a community of these exploited women to fashion jewellery, weave coasters, plait cloth pieces, or sew baby blankets. They are paid piece-rate for everything they produce with their own hands.
Providing them job opportunities is necessary as a stepping stone to an alternative way of life, but that's only the externals. True empowerment doesn't come from just economic, political or social improvement or gender equality programmes, no matter how good and necessary these are . It comes from knowing what our God (not man)-designed destiny is all about. When they know the truth that they are created for a good purpose by a good God who loves them, who would never leave nor forsake them, unlike the men who used them, then they have something solid to hold on to and something higher to live for, beyond themselves. No money, no so-called independence can heal hurting hearts. Only the hand of a loving Almighty God can soothe the pain of deep wounds and erase the past to re-write a totally brand-new story of abundant life on earth and eternal life in the hereafter. The name of the village means Hope in English, and that surely speaks a lot about what it represents for these women.
There is no need for heavy theology. I just let God's perfectly-designed love story speak for itself. How He didn't create Eve from a bone in Adam's head, because women aren't meant to climb on top of and over men. Nor did God create her from Adam's foot bone, because he isn't meant to trample on her. Instead , Eve was created out of a bone from Adam's side, so that they can walk and work together, for both are called and empowered to exercise dominion over the earth in their own distinctive strengths according to the good will of God. Eden was created to be paradise on earth for both man and woman. We all love a good love story, and who can top His-tory? God didn't mean for there to be any 'battle of the sexes'; that was our own doing when tragically, both man and woman disobeyed and distrusted God, thereby losing their original blessings, and condemning all humankind to suffer the consequences of a dysfunctional society to this day.
As I watch the women at work, some of them with young kids in tow, I feel a gamut of emotions, from anger to sorrow at how they have been so viciously exploited, and have had so much stolen from them. For I am a woman too, and though my circumstances may be vastly different from theirs, I too have known rejection, loss, pain, suffering... which human being hasn't? So I tell them of my own experience of life before and after knowing Christ, and what a real difference it makes to know and to live out the liberating truth of God's original intent for women. Now they have a chance to reclaim all they have lost by taking the first step of faith to believe in Him who alone can restore unto them the dignity and destiny of being a woman, beautiful and much beloved. That's the truth that sets every woman truly free.
"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." - John 8:36
For more pix, click here
Providing them job opportunities is necessary as a stepping stone to an alternative way of life, but that's only the externals. True empowerment doesn't come from just economic, political or social improvement or gender equality programmes, no matter how good and necessary these are . It comes from knowing what our God (not man)-designed destiny is all about. When they know the truth that they are created for a good purpose by a good God who loves them, who would never leave nor forsake them, unlike the men who used them, then they have something solid to hold on to and something higher to live for, beyond themselves. No money, no so-called independence can heal hurting hearts. Only the hand of a loving Almighty God can soothe the pain of deep wounds and erase the past to re-write a totally brand-new story of abundant life on earth and eternal life in the hereafter. The name of the village means Hope in English, and that surely speaks a lot about what it represents for these women.
There is no need for heavy theology. I just let God's perfectly-designed love story speak for itself. How He didn't create Eve from a bone in Adam's head, because women aren't meant to climb on top of and over men. Nor did God create her from Adam's foot bone, because he isn't meant to trample on her. Instead , Eve was created out of a bone from Adam's side, so that they can walk and work together, for both are called and empowered to exercise dominion over the earth in their own distinctive strengths according to the good will of God. Eden was created to be paradise on earth for both man and woman. We all love a good love story, and who can top His-tory? God didn't mean for there to be any 'battle of the sexes'; that was our own doing when tragically, both man and woman disobeyed and distrusted God, thereby losing their original blessings, and condemning all humankind to suffer the consequences of a dysfunctional society to this day.
As I watch the women at work, some of them with young kids in tow, I feel a gamut of emotions, from anger to sorrow at how they have been so viciously exploited, and have had so much stolen from them. For I am a woman too, and though my circumstances may be vastly different from theirs, I too have known rejection, loss, pain, suffering... which human being hasn't? So I tell them of my own experience of life before and after knowing Christ, and what a real difference it makes to know and to live out the liberating truth of God's original intent for women. Now they have a chance to reclaim all they have lost by taking the first step of faith to believe in Him who alone can restore unto them the dignity and destiny of being a woman, beautiful and much beloved. That's the truth that sets every woman truly free.
"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." - John 8:36
For more pix, click here
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