December 2003

Dear Friends,

So many of the women I live and work with live in a fenced-in place. This fence is not made of barbed wire; there are no fence posts or chains. You cannot see or touch it, but it is very real. The fence is made of

• Traditions, such as the one which values a girl child less than a boy because a girl child does not need formal education—after all, she will get married, take care of her house and husband and children, and she doesn’t need to go to school for that. Or the tradition that requires a woman to ask permission of her husband before she leaves the house for a meeting or other activity.
• Lack of self esteem—how often I hear someone say, “no se puede.” “I can’t do that.”
• A lot of hard, time-consuming, physical work—washing clothes by hand in cold water, searching for firewood, grinding the corn, making tortillas and all the food for a meal “from scratch.”
• Poor or non-existent roads—a woman may walk an hour or more, carrying her children, just to reach a road where maybe a pickup truck will take her the rest of the way to attend a meeting.

Most women accept their fences. This is the way life has been, is, will be. It is easy to become comfortable within this fenced-in place. It offers protection, security, and certainty; everyone knows what to expect. I think about Olga, who talked about the fenced-in place where women in her community live. “They spend their days moving between the kitchen and their house. [In her indigenous community the kitchen is usually outside the one- or two-room house because they cook over a wood fire.] We go to the market and to church and that is all we do, day after day.”

I think about Vilma, who lives in an isolated, rural, very-hard-to-get-to community. She is a pastor’s wife and mother of four. When she was selected by her Presbyterial to be the delegate to a churchwide event, she said, “No se puede.” I can’t do that. I have to have permission of my husband, and I can’t ride the bus all that way by myself!

But I rejoice as I watch Olga, Vilma, and others begin to tear down parts of their fences and venture outside. Olga ventured a long way, traveling to the United States to participate in the Gathering of Presbyterian Women in July of this year and then on to Albany, New York, to visit with brothers and sisters in her partner presbytery. She managed to negotiate two airports with a minimum of help, spent her first nights in a hotel (she insisted at first that the room was far too large for two people), found her way around hotels and meeting rooms at the Gathering. There she saw women preachers, teachers, nurses, businesswomen. She heard stories of women from Africa, Asia, and the United States, marveled at their faith and ministry, and knew herself to be their sister.

We finally convinced Vilma to be the delegate from her Presbyterial to an encuentro (a meeting) of women from different Presbyteriales in Guatemala. She talked with her husband, who was a bit reluctant at first because of his concern for her. He agreed to her going and “kept house” with the help of his daughters! Vilma traveled on a bus by herself! She met women from all over Guatemala. She learned more about different cultures and the lives of women in her country. And more about herself.

Now the challenge is for Olga and Vilma to live within their fenced-in place, but as different people, people who know that there is more beyond their community, who aren’t afraid to venture forth, to encounter new challenges, joys, and sorrows, people who live with dignity as daughters of the living God.

I like to think that Olga and Vilma and many other women like them in Guatemala have found that there is a gate in their fence, and they can come and go through this gate. Perhaps all us live within some sort of fenced-in place.

That is not all bad. We all need security, protection, and some certainty in life. We just need to remember that there is a gate in our fence. There is a Scripture verse in which Jesus says, “I am the gate” (John 10: 7). That’s a thought all of us, no matter where we live, should ponder. Jesus is the gate through which we come and go.

Ellen H. Dozier

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 133