Girl Empowerment

Women are undervalued.  They are undervalued in different ways depending on culture, religion and economic development throughout the world.  Women are not seen or treated as equals to men.  They are overworked, abused, oppressed, exploited, demeaned and underpaid.  Recognizing this gender inequality in Kenya, the Umoja Project has started a girl empowerment initiative called GET UP.  School attendance for girls drops significantly after grade 8 for various reasons, so GET UP focuses on girls from classes 6-8.  GET UP empowers girls by teaching them about communication, relationships, health and life skills in hopes that it will keep vulnerable girls from dropping out of school.  Education is the ticket out of poverty, and out of the damaging cycles of young pregnancy or marriage, so hopefully GET UP will offer these girls the knowledge to get out of such cycles.

This summer, the GET UP lesson topic was HIV prevention and treatment.  A disease that is surrounding these girls’ lives…infecting their families, churches, communities and schools.  The topic requires sex education, however we know that most of these girls probably know more about sex than we’d like to acknowledge or admit.  So, on Saturday morning the class 6-8 girls from several schools convene on the lawn of one of the schools.  They timidly walk up and sit down on the desks and benches.  They don’t know what to expect…and they are not used to such an event that focuses solely on girls.

Throughout our time of GET UP lesson planning, I felt the Spirit stirring my heart.  My unsettled feeling kept getting stronger and stronger until I finally spoke up.  All this talk about HIV prevention, abstinence and Bible verses that speak about our bodies as temples…but, what about those girls whose bodies have already been used for other things, removing any feeling of holiness? What about those girls who have possibly been exposed to this disease already? What about those girls who have been sexually abused for years?  Or by the trusted men in their lives?  What about the girls whose bodies no longer feel valuable or worth anything?  What about those girls who think that because they have already been used, they can now let any man use them?  This HIV message is going to fall on deaf ears if we do not address these silently suffering daughters of Christ.  After my time in Zambia last summer, I painfully learned about how prevalent sexual abuse is in African culture…just as in so many other cultures.

We decided that I would speak to these girls.  At the end of the lesson, I would preach to girls who felt like lost causes…like used goods…like there was nothing left that anyone would want:

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.  Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”  (Phil 3:20-4:1)

Amen!  God will take our bodies of humiliation and conform (adapt) them to the body of His Glory!! The power that places all things under God is the same power that restores bodies of shame and embarrassment.  Therefore, stand firm in the Lord!  I stood up in front of the girls and said that maybe there were girls in our midst that have been taken advantage of…that have already been used sexually.  Maybe there were girls who no longer had feelings of pride or holiness for their bodies…just as so many other girls in Kenya, in the U.S., and in every other country in the world.  I told them that there is hope!  There is restoration!  They are still the Lord’s beloved and can still be used for God’s glory.  Hallelujah! I moved on to a new way of thinking:

“…Christ has made me his own.  Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus”  (Phil 3:12b-14)

FORGET what lies behind.  STRAIN forward to what lies AHEAD.  PRESS ON toward the goal of the heavenly call.

Forget…meaning to overlook or disregard the past.  Drop it.  Let it go.

Strain…meaning to strive or labor for.  It’s not easy, it takes work.  Struggle to move forward to what is to come.

Press on…meaning to pursue or proceed toward the goal.  Don’t get stuck.  Don’t stop forward motion.  Don’t take your eyes off the end goal, the divine call.

My heart ached for these girls.  I wanted them to know, feel, and experience how much God loves, treasures and adores these daughters of His…including their bodies.  I wanted to take each girl who was facing this hardship and make them realize that this one part of their life does not define them.  God restores.  He wants to help them move past this, to move forward, and to reach their heavenly call.  There was complete silence the whole time I was speaking.  All 120 sets of eyes were on me…and I felt the Spirit ministering.  Oh, how deeply I meant every word that came out of my mouth…oh, how I looked into as many eyes as possible.  I was present.  I was standing with these broken girls at the same time as showing them God’s redemption.

Of course God turns this passage around on me weeks later.  I visit a wise woman of God during my last week in the village…I had some brokenness and questions that I needed counsel about.  This mentor was not at GET UP, and did not know that I had been referencing this Philippians passage during my time in Kenya thus far.  However, her wisdom to me?   To forget what lies behind, and to press on toward what God has for me in the future.  Even though I had been the one telling, and believing in, such things for those girls…I needed to be the recipient of those same words myself.