What follows is the sermon from the sixth Sunday of Easter. I included some resources at the end of the sermon if you would like to learn more or get involved in empowering women around the world.
“Lydia’s Story”
Rev. Dr. Teri McDowell Ott
May 9th, 2010
Saima Muhammad would dissolve into tears every evening. She was desperately poor, and her deadbeat husband was unemployed and not particularly employable. Their house, in the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, was falling apart, but they had no money for repairs. Saima had to send her young daughter to live with an aunt, because there wasn’t enough food to go around. Saima’s husband had also accumulated a debt of more than $3,000, and it seemed that this debt would hang over their family for generations. Then, when Saima’s second child was born and turned out to be a girl as well, her mother-in-law, a bitter old woman named Sharifa, exacerbated the family tension by telling her son that Saima was never going to give birth to a boy, so he should take a second wife. When Saima heard this she was shattered and ran off sobbing. Another wife would marginalize her further in the household and devastate the family finances, leaving even less money to feed and educate the children. Saima felt her whole life slipping away from her and she knew she needed some help.
So she joined a women’s solidarity group affiliated with a Pakistani microfinance organization called the Kashf Foundation. Saima took out a $65 loan and used the money to buy beads and cloth, which she transformed into beautiful embroidery to sell in the markets of Lahore. She used her profits to buy more beads and cloth, and soon she had an embroidery business and was earning a solid income—the only one in her household to do so. Soon Saima was able to bring her eldest daughter back from the aunt and she began paying off her husband’s debt.
When merchants wanted more embroidery than Saima could produce, she paid neighbors to work for her. Eventually thirty families in the neighborhood were benefiting from Saima’s business. Through Saima’s business success she was able to pay off her husband’s entire debt, keep her daughters in school, renovate their house, connect running water to the house, and buy the luxury of all luxuries, a television set.[1]
Saima’s story is an inspiring one because she succeeded in escaping poverty, in educating her children, and in providing for her family and her community all because someone believed in her enough to loan her $65.
After reading today’s scripture story I wondered to myself, “Who believed in Lydia?” Lydia, you see, was a rare woman of her time. “In New Testament times, a woman cast in a role beyond that of being property was exceptional.”[2] Lydia was exceptional because she was a successful businesswoman (a dealer of purple cloth), a homeowner, and an independently wealthy woman (no husband is mentioned in Lydia’s story.) Lydia is also exceptional in her personality. She was not demure or skittish as one would expect from someone considered to be “property.” Instead, she was eager, curious, confident, and convincing. She was a natural leader; which was perhaps why her home became a center for the growing church in Philippi.
So who believed in Lydia? Who empowered her to rise above the female status of merely being someone else’s property? Who tapped her God-given potential and gave her a chance? I’d like to know more of Lydia’s story because I’d like to see more women given such a chance.
Across the globe today many women still suffer abuse that results from the belief that they are inferior, that they are worthless, that they have no more potential beyond being someone else’s property. We have probably all heard some horrific stories of the violence and abuse women around the world must endure because of oppressive cultural and religious prejudice that says women are simply no good. So in light of this, in light of the oppression women face because of gender inequality, I’d like to know more of Lydia’s story, and more of other women’s stories who were able to rise from the ashes of oppression. I’d like to know more, because it seems like it doesn’t take very much to empower a woman.
Take Tererai Trent, for instance, a woman from Zimbabwe who accomplished more in her life than any of us would ever dream possible all from one person’s encouragement that her dreams were achievable. As a child living in Zimbabwe, Tererai didn’t get much formal education because she was a girl and was expected to take care of the household chores. She herded her family’s cattle and looked after her younger siblings while her brothers went to school. One of Tererai’s brother’s, Tinashe, hated school and wanted to drop out, but their father wouldn’t let him because he needed the education to become a breadwinner for the family. When Tinashe brought his books home from school the insatiably curious Tererai pored over them and taught herself to read and write. Soon she was doing Tinashe’s homework every night.
The teacher soon discovered what was going on, though, because Tinashe was such a poor student in class but always seemed to turn in perfect homework. And when the teacher found out that Tererai was the one turning in the perfect homework, the teacher went to Tererai’s father and begged him to allow her to attend school. After much debate and argument, her father finally agreed to let her attend school for a couple of terms. But then he married her off at age eleven and Tererai’s new husband refused to let her continue her schooling. To make matters even worse, her new husband resented Tererai’s literacy so much that he beat her whenever he thought he had caught her trying to practice her reading.
Then one day a woman named Jo came to Tererai’s village from the group Heifer International. Jo met with a group of women, Tererai included, and asked them what their hopes were for the future. At first the women were puzzled by the question because they didn’t really have any hopes. But Jo pushed them to think about their dreams and reluctantly they began to share. Tererai timidly voiced her hope of getting an education. When Jo heard of Tererai’s dream, she encouraged her and told her that her dream was achievable. It seemed that this little bit of encouragement was all Tererai needed in order to get on her way.
After Jo and her group from Heifer International left, Tererai began to study frantically, while raising her five children. She ran away from her husband to escape his beatings and continued to study. Then on a small piece of paper Tererai wrote down the goals for which she would work. “One day I will go to the United States of America, she wrote, to earn a college degree, then a master’s degree, and then a PhD.” All of these goals were exquisitely absurd dreams for a female cattleherder in Zimbabwe who had less than one year’s formal education. But no one told Tererai that. She took the piece of paper on which she had written these goals, folded it inside three layers of plastic to protect it, then placed it in an old can. She buried the can under a rock where she herded cattle.
Then Tererai started taking correspondence classes and began saving money. Her self-confidence grew as she did brilliantly in her studies, and she got a job working as a community organizer for Heifer International. With more encouragement from the Heifer aid workers, she applied to Oklahoma State University and was accepted. So she climbed into an airplane for the first time and flew to America. At Oklahoma State, Tererai took as many credits as possible and worked nights to make money. She earned her bachelor’s degree and then started on her master’s. After her master’s degree she moved on to Western Michigan University where she recently completed her studies for her PhD, writing her dissertation about AIDS programs in Africa. After accomplishing each of these amazingly difficult goals, Tererai returned to her village, hugged her loved ones, then went and dug up that old can with the piece of paper inside. And she crossed off each of her goals with pride, signifying her accomplishments.[3]
Isn’t it amazing how far someone can go if they receive a little encouragement? Tererai, with all of her invaluable education, is now a productive economic asset for Africa, for her children, and for her children’s children who will all benefit from her work for generations.
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, two journalists for the New York Times, recently wrote a book entitled, Half the Sky. The title comes from an old Chinese proverb that says, “Women hold up half the sky.” In this book Kristof and Wudunn discuss the need to empower women across the world not only as a women’s issue, but as a humanitarian issue, and as a way to seriously improve the economy and the living conditions of the poor in developing countries. In the research for their book they discovered that in normal circumstances women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Even poor regions like most of Latin America and much of Africa have more females than males. To empower these women through education, through microfinance loans, through proper pre-natal and maternal health care, the positive social and economic effects are extraordinary. Kristoff and Wudunn call it the “girl effect” when whole families, communities, and villages are transformed simply because a woman was empowered and encouraged. Half the population of human beings can contribute significantly, if they are given the chance to do so. In their book Kristoff and Wudunn conclude that, “In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality in the developing world.”[4]
In this month’s issue of the Presbyterians Today magazine I was so pleased and so inspired to see a picture of our missionary friend, David Hudson, standing with a group of Pakistani girls outside of their school that is supported by our denominational mission funds. At the end of this article I was further inspired to read these words, “Presbyterian [mission] schools stress the education of females. ‘The literacy rate in Pakistan is really low, 30 percent among girls,’ says Veeda Javaid, executive director of the Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan. “But if we educate a girl,” Javaid continued, “we are [more than likely] educating a mother, which pays off for generations.”[5]
I could think of no better way to honor our mothers today than to highlight the impact women can have on the world if only they are so empowered. Stories such as Saima’s, and Tererai’s, and Lydia’s may be rare, but they represent all the transformation that is possible when a person’s God-given potential is encouraged, and tapped, and then shared with their family, their community, and their world. So on this Mother’s Day, I pray that we might all find a way to encourage a woman today.
Now to the God of all grace, be all honor and glory, thanksgiving and power, now and forevermore. Amen.
Resources for Information and Involvement:
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 2009).
www.heifer.org website for Heifer International, a great organization.
www.pcusa.org/worldmission news stories, a column from the World Mission Director, a video feature and links to various World Mission ministries
www.pcusa.org/worldwide country-by-country descriptions of the ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its partners around the world.
www.kiva.org You can give a woman in the developing world a microloan through this organization.
www.engenderhealth.org focuses on reproductive health issues in the developing world.
www.equalitynow.org lobbies against the sex trade and gender oppression around the world.
www.empoweragirl.org was founded in 2007 by fifteen-year-old California girl, Sejal Hathi. It builds relationships between girls across continents and supports education and health programs in fifteen countries.
[1] Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 2009) e-book locations 3,423-3,446.
[2] David G. Forney, “Pastoral Perspective” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, pg.476.
[3] Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 2009) e-book locations 4,393—4,440.
[4] Ibid, e-book locations: 162-165.
[5] Jerry L. Van Marter, “Education is the Key,” Presbyterians Today, May 2010, pg. 21.
Dan
Teri
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