It sit in circles with women every week, and yeah, we have problems, heartbreaks even. Our trials are real, painful and nerve wracking, to us.
Today I have to, I must be, honest with you and with myself. If you are a woman, like me, who is living in a home with running water, heat, and fridge full of food, you are living in the top quarter of the world. There is nothing wrong with that, we are simply living what we know. That’s just it, it’s what we know.
Every once in awhile someone breaks into our life, the little bubble in which we live, and gives us information that we don’t know. For some reason the Lord has decided that in this moment it is time for us to know something new, something that will change us, the way we think and what we do.
Today, my friends, I’m going to do this for you. Maybe you’ll thank me, or maybe you’ll want to unknow, but you see there is no unknowing.
There is a tiny woman who goes to my church, she wakes before the sun comes up and goes to her basement. She is not going to her computer, or her treadmill, but she sits down at her sewing machine and begins to sew.
Surrounded by bolts of fabric and spools of thread and the biggest ironing board I’ve ever seen, she sews. She isn’t sewing curtains or crafts, she sews menstrual kits. Yep, you heard me, menstrual kits, washable, reusable ones.
She has chosen the fabric with care, the most beautiful prints she can find, the thickness and softness of the fabric is of the utmost importance. You see with each kit she sews she is changing one life, really changing it.
You can see what my friend Christine is up to here.
Women living in Africa, Nepal, India and other third world countries have no products for feminine hygiene.
Imagine with me-
- Imagine, having your period and sitting on a piece of card board, hay, or dirt for the week.
- Imagine be exiled to a hut, in the heat and the cold as you sit. The blood calling out to every animal or serpent near.
- Imagine being so desperate to go to work that you try to stop your flow with rocks, corn husks, even dried feces, anything that will absorb the flow.
- Imagine the disease and infection that could ravage your body.
- Imagine the pain.
- Imagine if you are lucky enough to go to school and have access to some product, but you have to allow your principal to rape you in order to get it.
Women are beaten down, stripped of their dignity because of the flow of blood, a flow that God created to carry life into the world.
Women living in South America, Canada and Europe where the cost of product is five times what it is in the US. Meaning a box of tampons can be as high as $28 dollars. You are forced to miss work or school, family celebrations, worship, because you are home on rags having your period.
There are many women with the US who cannot afford product for themselves or their daughters, women who are living on under $12,000 a year. Not to mention the limited access to products for girls in foster care or women in prison. They have no money to buy it for themselves and US or State governments do not, where will they get it, and worse yet, what will they have to do to get what they need?
Imagine with me, If you were one of these women, how a washable,
reusable feminine hygiene kit would change your life.
My friend is on mission sewing as many kits as she can, changing a life with every one. Giving women and girls freedom and dignity. She is faithful to sew and an organization called Days for Girls is faithful to get them to the women and girls who need them.
Ever since my friend shared all of this with me, I wake each morning thinking of the girls, alone, disgraced and suffering because their bodies are doing what they are designed to do. There is no where for them to turn, no help to be found. They suffer as their mothers have suffered.
I don’t know the first thing about sewing, I don’t have much to offer, but now I know and I can’t unknow.
I start with this, spreading the news and praying that God will show me a way I can help, and that I will be willing to sacrifice my own comfort to do it. It’s a heart searching, a soul searching really.
Am I willing to see the suffering of others through the eyes of Christ?
Am I willing to wake before the sun?
Am I willing to go to bed late?
Am I willing to give up a meal out, and give that money away?
Am I willing to travail in prayer?
Am I willing to not do one great thing, but one small thing to change a life?
I hate to do this to you, I really do…
Now, you know, and just like me, there is no unknowing.
