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May 2002
Dear Friends,
"I thought God was testing me, to see if I would be a
good wife and mother."
"My mother told me that for 30 years she was abused by
my father, then he changed and has not hurt her for the last
20 years, so I should just hang in there, things will get better."
"When I told my pastor that my husband beat me, he told
me that I should try harder to be a good wife."
"I thought the physical abuse was my cross to bear."
"I thought I was being punished by God because I was pregnant
when I married."
These are some of the comments I have heard from women as we
discuss the issue of domestic violence. When we first began to
address this topic with the Guatemalan women, I did so with "fear
and trepidation." I knew that this was not something that
is openly discussed within the church community. I knew that in
this male-dominated society, machismo is alive and well; and I
knew there are men who still consider their wives part of their
personal property.
Using a video produced in the United States in which women of
different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds share their
experiences of being abused has opened the door a crack for the
women to express their feelings and talk about their experiences.
Quietly and somewhat timidly they began to acknowledge that yes,
domestic violence is a problem which exists even within Christian
families. So now that there was a tentative acknowledgment of
the problem, what do we do?
It is easy to be overwhelmed by the depth of the problem of domestic
violence, an issue that is fraught with the possibility of dividing
an already divided church. Some days I have wanted to forget we
ever approached this subject! Where do we begin? We do what we
can, however small and feeble the efforts may be.
- We study women of the Bible and allow their experiences and
lives to become examples for us of strong, vibrant, creative
women, who are daughters of God.
- We listen to the testimonies of women who have experienced
abuse and now struggle to see themselves in a new way.
- We have been accompanied by a group of women from the United
States who led us in a workshop, "Caminando Juntas"
(Walking Together) in which they shared their experiences of
accompanying abused women and gave us information and resources
to help us work in our church communities, and (perhaps most
important), they affirmed the value and worth of each woman.
- We try to understand the many forms and dimensions of domestic
violence, not only the physical abuse but emotional, psychological,
and sexual abuse.
- We try to raise the awareness within the men and women of
the church community to the reality and seriousness of this
problem and how the church can begin to address it.
- We plan to ask a lawyer to talk with the women about their
legal rights.
- Underlying and supporting everything we do, we try to tell
and show women that they really are daughters of a God who loves
them and desires life for them, life in all its fullness. We
talk of a God who does not will that any woman suffer violence.
We had a second session of the workshop, Caminando Juntas, and
at the end Maria, who had participated in both workshops and had
told us that when her husband beat her she thought this was God’s
way of testing her to see if she was a good wife and mother, now
affirmed with the others "soy una hija de Dios, estoy creada
en la imagen de Dios," (I am a daughter of God, created in
God’s image). A small, tentative, but ever so important step
toward healing, toward living the life God longs for her, and
all God’s daughters, to enjoy.
Ellen Dozier
The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 242
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