Many centuries ago (20 to be exact), female babies were considered a liability. Demographics in the first century in certain parts of the world were stunningly imbalanced male to female. Female infanticide was not uncommon. Baby girls, often considered the equivalent of deformed, were killed by exposure. In essence, it was permitted by law to leave them outside the city on the dung heap to die. That is about as clear a judgment of “worthless” on a human life as can be made. There was, however, a growing group of people who seemed to think the judgment was an error. Rather than accepting the culture’s assessment regarding the value of females, they went outside the city to the dung heaps to find and rescue the abandoned baby girls. The decision was both risky and sacrificial.
It required standing against the mainstream and making a judgment that was counter to the culture of that time. It meant the giving of life, time and goods to someone else’s discarded baby girl. It meant extending the circle of one’s responsibility. It meant being devalued and disdained for stooping so low as to treat that which was considered worthless as precious. Who were these people? They were the Church, the body of Jesus Christ. They followed the Lamb who went outside the city gates to make the ultimate sacrifice and give His life a ransom for many who were deemed worthless. By His death, He judged them to be precious. His first century Body followed Him outside the gates to the garbage heaps of those days to redeem baby girls. The call that was answered by our first century brethren is very similar to a call that now sits before those of us in the 21st century church.
The question that remains to be answered is whether or not we, too, will follow the Lamb outside the city gates to pursue and rescue those found worthless in the eyes of this world, and sacrificially work among them because they are precious in His sight? Most of you know the statistics in the United States regarding women. Though reports vary, most studies suggest that one in three or one in four females is sexually abused by the age of 18. Rape, one of the most underreported of all crimes, is believed to happen to one in four women. Nearly 5.3 million intimate partner victimizations occur each year among U.S. women ages 18 and older. Estimates indicate that intimate partners stalk more than one million women annually (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000b). Nearly 25% of women have been raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner. About 80% of women in the workforce will experience sexual harassment at some point. In the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, being born female is still something of a risk.
The risks increase exponentially if you stop to look at the world today. The most brutal and destructive manifestation of the anti-female bias is female infanticide, a practice still found in a number of Third World countries. There are no overall statistics, but a minimum estimate would place the casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Sex-selective abortions account for an even higher number of “missing” girls. Demographics suggest that between 60 and 100 million females are missing. Giving birth is the most dangerous labor in the world. Some 600,000 mothers die in agony every year. Early marriage, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices cause physical and psychological harm to countless females. Violence is a major health and development issue for girls worldwide. Domestic violence, incest, dowry violence and honor killings destroy lives.
The sex trafficking of girls and women is utterly destroying close to a million females as they are moved across national boundaries and sold into virtual slavery. In order to supply this global sex trade, a woman or girl is sold somewhere in the developing world every ten minutes. The International Justice Mission has rescued little girls as young as five from the brothels of Southeast Asia. Young girls are especially susceptible to HIV, and in some countries, the infection rates for girls are three to six times higher than for boys (Stephen Lewis, “Lend a Hand,” Globe and Mail, 5 May 2000). Women now represent 50% of the 40 million people living with HIV/ AIDS. They are also the vast majority of the poorest of the poor. To loosely quote a character in the movie Hotel Rwanda, “If we could see souls, we would see that the streets of this world are littered with the souls of women and children.”
This past winter I read The Natashas by Canadian journalist, Victor Malarek (note book review section). He writes about the trafficking of girls from Eastern Europe into the rest of the world and says that female flesh is one of the top three commodities on the world’s black market. He and others are calling it the human rights issue of the 21st century. He says, “The issue of trafficking desperately cries out for firm, committed leadership; it has to be made a global concern.” I read this book as I sat in my comfortable chair by a cozy fire and I was shaken. I, one of this world’s more privileged females, realized that the one organization in this world that exists everywhere that could come to the aid of the abused, mutilated, violated and trafficked women, is the church of Jesus Christ.
Is it possible that we who bear His Name are, like our predecessors, being called to follow Him outside the camp for the sake of females who are deemed worthless trash? It seems odd, when you stop to think about it, that by and large the evangelical community in this country has primarily focused on women surrounding the issues of roles and place. We seem far more concerned that women not overstep whatever boundaries our particular circle deems right. We have certainly not led the way regarding such things as incest, rape, violence, HIV and harassment. Going outside the camp to rescue trashed females has hardly been our clarion call. We are far more focused on keeping females in their “right” place and making noises about feminism and other “isms” that would lure them away from the parameters we prefer. In the meantime, the girls and women of this world are dying on the dung heaps. Do you know that females make up approximately one half of the world’s population? That means if we take the terrible plagues, such as abuse and trafficking, seriously, females comprise the largest mission field in this world. What might happen if the Church caught the vision of that field and began training and sending men and women around the world to protect, educate, nurture and rescue women and girls in the Name of Jesus? There is a precedent for such a work.
It predates our brothers and sisters of the first century. I believe it is what lay behind their sacrificial and risky behavior. The precedent is the life of the Savior they followed. He arrived as the seeming illegitimate son of a virgin in a culture that should have stoned her because she was very much outside the parameters. She did not maintain her role or place in that society. His genealogy has several trashed women in it— Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. That list brings into His history such things as incest, prostitution, interracial marriage (which was forbidden in that culture) and adultery. He went from there to swim upstream by saying things like, looking on a female as a sex object is the equivalent of adultery (worthy of stoning in that culture). He began His ministry by blessing an unnamed bride in Cana.
Women publicly traveled with Him, a stunning and offensive situation in that culture. He treated one woman as a male disciple when He affirmed her presence at His feet and treated another as an apostle when He gave to her the privilege of first telling others of His resurrection. He paused in His work of saving the world to raise a girl-child from the dead, return a son to a widow and a brother to two grieving women. He accorded women dignity, honor, safety, education and privilege. If He did these things for women and girls, should not His Body do the same? His teaching calls us to the mission field of women and girls as much as His life. To the woman caught in adultery, something He has condemned, He said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Do you suppose such a Savior would rain down condemnation on the girls and women of this world who are dying of AIDS? He taught us that what we have done (or not) to the “least of these” we have done to Him. Would we leave Him on the dung heap to die, allow Him to be trafficked and brutally raped, turn blind eyes to violence against His person?
Do you suppose the Savior who touched lepers would ignore the girls and women of this world who are considered unclean and untouchable? He calls to us through His brother James to note that pure religion in the sight of God our Father is to visit the widows and orphans in their distress (James 1:27). Do you think such a Savior would say that trafficked girls, abandoned girls, mutilated girls and violated girls might qualify as orphans? Might He suggest to us that women who are sold across a nation’s borders, threatened by dowry killings, infected by AIDS and abandoned or relentlessly battered by their husbands could possibly qualify as widows? We pour our money into megachurches, sound systems and air-conditioned buildings while they die. We run around trying to make a name for ourselves, looking for fame and income, while they are trafficked. We sit in our wealthy country and drive our expensive cars while they give birth in bullock carts.
We drink our Starbucks while women watch their children die of malaria and tuberculosis. We condemn them for their immorality while AIDS increases exponentially. All the while the voice of our Savior is calling us to crawl all over the dung heaps of this world searching for the abandoned, neglected, dying, abused and trafficked. What do you suppose would happen if collectively we caught the vision? What might result if the Church around the world truly recognized the plight of females in this world? I suspect repentance would come first. Like Daniel we would say, “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because your (church) and Your people are called by Your name” (Daniel 9:19). Having repented we would pray. We would pray for the Church in the United States to see and hear the cries of the largest mission field in the world.
We would pray for the churches worldwide that sit side by side with the trafficked and the dying. We would pray for the girls and the women who are suffering and dying without hope. We would pray, asking for wisdom and discernment, to know what to do for the widows and orphans of this world. We would read. We would read so as to understand the issues and thereby effectively work with our own government to be courageous in its stand against trafficking, its assistance with AIDS and its interventions on behalf of women and girls around the world. We would have the knowledge and courage to challenge our leaders not to allow politics to destroy humanitarianism. We would resource those in the Body of Christ in other countries who are watching and ministering to a great company of women without the supplies we have so readily available here. And we would go. Not all of us certainly, but some. We are rich in training and old_resources. We have much to offer. We also have much to learn. Going would teach us about those who are not like us in many ways, and yet, exactly like us in others. We, who inhabit this rich country, would be greatly enriched by the poor of this world. You see, the principle is this: as you leave your world and go out of yourself in order to give yourself to others, you return exponentially richer than before. How do I know this? I have found it to be so in my own life.
Cross-cultural work has certainly taught me many things about human beings. It has stretched my heart to love many I never knew who were living lives I could not have imagined. My mind has been challenged to think in new ways and different categories. Cross-cultural work has also taught me a great deal about my Lord. You see, He is the One who set forth the principle by leaving His world and going out of Himself in order to give Himself to others. According to the Scriptures, He returned home exponentially richer than before.
How is He richer? He is richer because He has us—we who were abandoned on the dung heaps to die. Wonder of wonders—His rescue of the worthless ones became His glory (“we have obtained an inheritance… to the end that we… would be to the praise of His glory” Ephesians 1:12). And it will be so for us if we but follow Him.Take help from telephone psychologist .
As we go to the human trash heaps of this world, seeking those who are considered worthless by this world, the glory will be ours as His Body will far exceed the inadequate substitutes we so often pursue—size, fame, wealth and power. It will, in fact, be the glory Jesus prayed for us to have: “The glory which You have given me I have given to them… so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:22,23). May those who follow us in future centuries point to our love of the Savior, demonstrated in going out to the trash heaps to rescue the girls and women for whom He died and thereby called precious. _Diane M. Langberg, Ph.D., is a practicing psychologist, chairs AACC’s Executive Board and is the author of Counseling Survivors of Sexual Abuse and On the Threshold of Hope._
