In my short, yet what seems like a very long, 23 years of life on this earth, I have come to realize how angry at women the enemy is. The Darkness is threatened by a light that is inside every girl and woman on this earth, which is exactly why he has spread the lie in most cultures, that women are weak, women are stupid, women are worthless, women are nothing more than objects. But what I have come to learn more and more as I hear the stories of the things women have endured, is that the enemy is a coward, and he is threatened by the strength and beauty God has build in the very fabric of our being. I love being on an all women's team because I get to see the ways the enemy has tried to tell these women lies, the way they have chosen to stand for them no longer and then the way they are choosing to speak out and seek justice and freedom. We have been spiritually attacked this month and it is because Darkness shakes in his boots, afraid of the chains we are breaking. If you are a woman, there is something I want you to know and take hold of:
You are strong, you are powerful and you have a beauty that is designed to shake the very gates of hell!
If you have been abused, made to feel weak, helpless and ugly, it is because the enemy wants you never to realize the power you possess.
Because once you do, there is no stopping all the greatness you will achieve!
Those that know me and know me well, know that my heart's desire is to become a midwife. I love the beauty of pregnancy and childbirth, but more than anything I love the unique beauty that God chose to dwell in the female body, mind and soul. God is deepening my call of what it means to be a midwife by bringing to light the depth of it's original definition.
Midwife means: with woman.
And as each month goes by I am learning what it means to be with women and for women. It will take quite some time to become a Certified Nurse Midwife, but even if that is 8 years down the road, I can always, always be with and for women.
Today our ministry (the first ministry I've done in over a week) was in a school with the adolescent students and we got the opportunity to talk with the boys and girls together first about self-respect, sex, rape, incest, drugs and alcohol. Some pretty heavy stuff, eh? It was such an amazing moment to share the experiences that we women have been through and all that God has taught us through our pain and sorrows. We encouraged these young men and women to step out of hiding and that it was okay to talk to someone and seek help for all they'd been through. We encouraged them to stop seeing God as a big scary man sitting on a thrown, out to take away their "fun" and shake a finger at them whenever they sinned; and to start seeing Him as a loving Father who knows that sin is sin because it hurts us, breaks the Father's heart and is a distorted picture of what pleasure really is. After our time with the combined group I had a powerful opportunity to give a talk with just the girls in a classroom. About 150 girls between the ages of 9 and 16 sat staring intently, waiting to hear what I had to say.
I started off talking about puberty and how our bodies start to change during that age and how confusing it can be. Then I shared with them Psalm 139 and talked about how complex and magnificent our bodies are. That there is nothing to be ashamed of because we are the Temples of the Living God and we can rejoice in the way God designed our female bodies to work because it is beautiful and amazing. I then felt the Lord leading me to give each one of them a piece of paper that I ripped out of my journal, and had them write the following:
My Name Is:__________ And I AM A GIRL!
I then proceeded to talk about how God made us strong and beautiful in different ways than He designed men and that neither men or women were better than the other, but that we are different and different is okay. After that was the big talk: The Menstruation Cycle!!! I drew a picture of the internal anatomy of the female reproductive system and labeled each part. We talked about how their body works to produce a baby and what actually happens during this time. I used proper words and no one giggled or felt uncomfortable or ashamed. We then demonstrated how they can use sanitary napkins and take care of themselves. Even better, we were able to give each girl a package of sanitary napkins for each month of the school year, that were supplied by Kenya's Ministry of Education.
Here in Kenya and many African countries, a girl is prohibited from attending classes during her menstruation because it is considered unclean. Often times they miss so much time it makes it difficult to catch up. So the government here is trying to supply girls with proper materials so that they can be clean and still attend school. It breaks my heart that young girls are stopped from having an education just because their bodies are doing what they were designed to do. Can you imagine how that would make you feel? To me that says, because I am a girl I am lesser than boys. Because my body does this thing that I can't help, I deserve different treatment then men. Ugh, that sucks! Because that is so not what God intended!
My favorite part of this month is that Justice is being served. We are speaking out against the lies and schemes of the enemy and of man, and we are bringing light and deliverance to this community called Isiabania. Something that we are currently working on is seeing how we can fight against Female Genital Mutilation, also known as female circumcision. Right now in the country of Kenya it is illegal to perform these surgeries on young girls, but because it is so rooted in tribal traditions, many adults still force young girls into the circumcision of their clitoris and more. They tell these girls that no one will marry them if they do not perform this custom, and many of those that resist are often snatched off the streets and forced into it. Once the circumcision is performed, they are sent to walk home in the heat to stand the test of strength. If they make it home, they are now considered women and ready to be married, so many drop out of school at that point and end up wed and baring children at a very young age. And those who don't make it, pass out and bleed to death on the side of the road. We are planning to have a meeting with an organization here that fights against FGM and sets up safe houses for girls. This will give us insight, education, and a platform to share our voices.
Please pray for justice in this place and pray that doors will be opened for us to be the light in this darkness. And pray that we will become spiritual midwives; with women and for women, all over the world.
