November 2002

Dear Friends,

In sub-Saharan Africa women are all too often the victims of injustice. This is the result of the paternalistic society in which women do not enjoy the rights of men. When a woman marries, her body becomes the property of her husband, and he has authority over any decisions regarding it and all other property. If a husband dies, his family comes and takes all the family possessions, leaving the widow and her children with nothing. Women are charged with all child-raising responsibility, food-growing, gathering and preparation, as well as other domestic work.

If a woman needs a surgery, it is her husband who decides if this is possible. He controls all monies so he makes all important decisions. Most women deliver at home, and if things are not going well, it is the husband who decides if his wife can go to a clinic or a hospital. Sometimes he decides this only after several days of labor. When women arrive after several days, the baby is dead and the pressure of the head against the tissues of the vagina creates the death of some of these tissues, which leads to fistulas, permanent holes, between the bladder and vagina and/or rectum and vagina. These ladies now are constantly soiled with urine and feces. They are not of real value to their husbands any longer, so the men abandon them, and they are left to try to live as social outcasts. They have no means of support, no work, no skills, and no way to earn the money needed to have the surgery to close these fistulas. Even if they can get the money, there are very few doctors with the skills and the means to repair these fistulas.

He reluctantly agreed, and we operated her, finding her abdomen swollen with urine and terribly infected.

This turned out to be the first of three surgeries resulting from infection, with the third ending in the removal of her kidney. Unfortunately, her fistula was not repaired correctly; she still leaked urine but was alive. That was four months ago. One month ago, I repaired her fistula. She is now dry and smiles again. She speaks a language that nobody at the hospital speaks, and we need to find other patients to translate for us to communicate but her smile tells her story. Today, we released her and she and I hugged. It was a moment I will long remember.

We see many fistulas, and these women have a right to have these repaired. This can only happen if we have a hospital with the equipment and facilities to do so and the charity of all of you to help us do this. Women live lives filled with injustice but we can work to correct these injustices whether they're the result of disease or of social custom. This will be a long and difficult process and we must have faith and reassure these ladies that, although their husbands have abandoned them, God has not. Words are not enough. We must also act. We must speak out against injustice and we must take care of our sisters.

We thank you for your support in prayers and in money and materials to help us correct the physical damage and work toward correcting the causes: economic, spiritual, emotional, and social, so that fistula repairs will fade into history here as they have in the United States.

Our love to all,

Mike and Nancy Haninger

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 29