Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
On Friday, three women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their commitment to women’s rights. Two of those women, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, were from Liberia, the country I called home for most of my elementary school years.
I haven’t stopped grinning since I heard the news. See, it was in Liberia that I first witnessed the true ugliness of gender injustice, first understood that a tiny seed of pride and superiority dropped into the heart of a man would blossom not into a sheltering tree, but into an ugly, invasive weed that choked the life out of everything around it.
My “Damascus road” experience happened when I was nine years old, peering out the window of our second-story apartment in Monrovia. Just outside our gate, a woman was curled up on her side under a palm tree, worn tee-shirt stretched thin across her torso as she shielded her head with her dusty black arms, her lappa-clad knees tucked close to her chest. The man kicking her wore camouflage, and had a government-issued machine gun slung over his shoulder.
I was horrified. It wasn’t that I hadn’t witnessed beatings before—to the contrary, they were common in Liberia. But this was different, an armed man beating a helpless, cringing women. And I had heard the whispers, the muted conversations adults thought I was too young to understand, about what men with guns did to women.
I heard my father approaching and froze, expecting to be shooed away from the window. But he stopped a few steps behind me and just stood there, watching the scene unfold over my head. Then he sighed, turned, and walked away without a word.
The tectonic plates in my young soul shifted. For the first time, I realized there were some things my father, the strong, sensible, white American male, couldn’t fix. That if he went out there and did what every fiber of his being was undoubtedly screaming to do, he would only make things worse. To rush into the street and put himself between a murderous mob and a thief was one thing, and he did it on a regular basis. But to put himself between a man and a woman would constitute such an insult that the woman could very well end up dead.
That’s when I realized that violence against women isn’t a social problem; it is a spiritual problem, a highly-contagious disease that eats away at the hearts, souls, minds and bodies of humanity. You can’t address the problem by treating the symptoms—you have to go deep under the surface and neutralize it at its root, that tiny seed of pride, disdain, bitterness, and superiority allowed to germinate in the soul.
That is precisely what the women of Liberia have been doing for the last decade, recognizing their God-given worth, claiming their voices, and banding together to demand not just national but personal shalom, for themselves and the next generation. Consider the words Leymah Gbowee of as she led hundreds of women to the capital of Liberia in 2003. “We the women of Liberia will no more allow ourselves to be raped, abused, misused, maimed and killed! Our children and grandchildren will not be used as killing machines and sex slaves!”
Liberia still has a long way to go. We all do. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and this hope makes us very bold.
That’s when I realized that violence against women isn’t a social problem; it is a spiritual problem, a highly-contagious disease that eats away at the hearts, souls, minds and bodies of humanity. … But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and this hope makes us very bold.
That is so well written and I thank you so much for putting it so clearly. You know that I see the ugly aftermath of this type of abuse at work. The ugliness of the attitudes and value systems that led to it happening I get to see firsthand since they walk into my courtroom regularly. You’re right, it is a spiritual problem. So I put my reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit to work through me to carry out the Father’s will. I sure can’t rely on my own power nor my own will; both of those would lead me down a ruinous path in quick order, much as you describe the worsening that your father recognized would result if he followed his first inclinations.
Thank you for another post that makes me think.
Cheers,
Tim
Thanks for your encouragement, Tim. Watching the women of Liberia, who were (and are) in such dire circumstances, reject powerlessness and stand up against the violence has been amazing! I wish their stories got more publicity–they’re such an incredible example.
Good work Jenny! I am glad you are writing about this issue. Sometime we need to get you in to speak to the InterVarsity students.
Thanks Brian! I’d love to come speak to the students sometime. That’s such a crucial age, especially for issues like this.
I found your link from Rachel Held Evans’ blog. Thank you for sharing these words. I am inspired to learn more about Leymah Gbowee and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. You have a beautiful way of writing.
Thanks for dropping by, Annette! I popped over to your blog and subscribed–your writing is gorgeous, and your content is spot-on. Glo-burban–I love it!
I appreciate this moving account of your experience in and ongoing passion for Liberia. This summer I was that white father, alongside my 17-year-old son, talking with a poor Liberian man who told us he wanted to kill himself because he had no money for food and no bed for himself or for his 2 children (or was it 3 or more, and where was their mother?) A friend videotaped the conversation and documented the man’s living conditions. We didn’t give him money because that’s not why we came. But we did wonder later in that day, should we have given him money, should we have bought him a mattress, what good what that have done? We’re still trying to keep those questions alive in our hearts back here in our privileged small town setting outside of Boston. My son’s talking about going back to Liberia next summer and bringing friends with him. He’s applying to colleges for international development. I’ve started a masters in counseling program at a local seminary, triggered in part by the Liberia trip.
The day I learned about the Nobel prize going to these amazing women I went to the bus station to pick up a Liberian friend we made this summer who stayed the weekend with us. It’s first time in the states, he wants to go to school here if he can get the visa thing worked out. We said goodbye on the eve of the Liberian election.
Surely these bookends are not coincidence, Lord. Our family is wondering what our part is.
Thanks so much for commenting, Christopher! It is so encouraging to hear about other people with a heart for Liberia, and the way God is using Liberia to touch, mold and shape people’s lives.
I have not been to Liberia since 1988, before the war started. :-/ I was going to go back to visit several years ago, but at that point it still wasn’t stable enough, and we were told in no uncertain terms by friends there that we had to cancel the trip. But my heart still aches for Liberia, and I too wonder what God has planned.
Blessing on you and your family! Please feel free to keep in contact!!!