September 5, 2007

Dear Friends and Supporters of PC(USA) mission:

This letter will be different, because its primary purpose is to inform you not of the work of the projects in which I am involved with prostitutes and victims of domestic violence, but to tell you of an upcoming event that your church will doubtless be interested in.

In mid-September a letter will go to the pastors and clerks of session in all 10,884 churches in our denomination. It will inform them about Mission Challenge ’07, when, beginning in early October, 47 PC(USA) missionaries will spend a week sharing the stories of their ministry in churches in 143 presbyteries. Their stories will interpret and reflect the excellence of the Presbyterian Church as a mission-sending agency, and they will invite their listeners to offer financial support to Presbyterian missionaries through World Mission. They will be talking about their work in many countries of the world as representatives of your faith as members of the PC(USA). The speakers may have full schedules now, but your church can participate by watching the DVD and distributing the bulletin inserts on a Sunday in October. These will arrive in early October in every church. Visit the Mission Challenge Web site for more information.

Since there is space remaining, I would like to bring you up to date on the projects and people where I work with Association Women Speak.

A couple of weeks ago our proposed city contract (actually, an addition to one we have) was finally approved by the São Paulo city government.  It will mean a badly needed influx of money that will go to expanding the materials available to the prostitutes’ sewing and weaving projects. We will also be able to hire one additional staff person and a part-time workshop coordinator. We expect to triple the number of women who participate in our courses and workshops. Everyone is enormously pleased.  It is the only such project in all of São Paulo—and the current participants deserve much of the credit because the quality of their products is a major reason for the contract’s approval.

Our same facility serves as a reference center for victims of domestic violence in the center of São Paulo. The women’s police station in the region reports a higher number of victims from our area than any other part of this enormous city. Our psychologist, lawyer, and social worker are kept very busy. We hope to establish group therapy for victims, too, but the individuals’ resistance is very high. The fly in our ointment is the contract supervisor from the city government who wants our center to function on a drop-in basis and group therapy model. She confuses quantity with quality (it’s easier to measure!). We think we would sacrifice the women’s security if we operated as a drop-in center, and no one can make the women participate in group therapy if they don’t want to. In a similar center that I used to work with, there is group therapy, but women participate because the center has gained the confidence of the community over years. We only began to function as a reference center in February of this year.

The projects at the two shelters for women whose lives are endangered by their ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends are going well. This month we are losing some valuable staff members because they have accepted other challenges and because after some years of work under substantial and inevitable pressure, they need a break. They will be missed, but we are reassured by the quality of the candidates we have already interviewed. Over the last three years, the association that runs the two shelters has had endless struggles with the consortium of city governments (on the edge of São Paulo) that sponsors the shelters. Earlier this year the problems diminished very noticeably. What a relief! Now we can spend more quality time on the problems of the women and children who live at the shelters.

For those of you who have followed my recounting of the successes of “Beatrice,” she has had a major one. She was hired for more than the minimum wage to sell clothing in a very stylish and expensive store. She works only three days a week and still has time to continue with her literacy and math classes. Furthermore, she is a fully accredited employee, with all the fringe benefits to which such status entitles her. This is an accomplishment of only about 50 percent of the workforce in Brazil. Despite the expense, I have a good notion to go and buy something at the store that took a chance and hired her. Such commercial farsightedness and social conscience needs to be acknowledged.

I look forward to hearing about the success of Mission Challenge ’07 and hope that you and your church will help make it happen.

In mission,

Linnis Cook

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 41