We’re just a group of women…
Our first full day of the conference saw the opening of our workshops. As the WOGA participants broke off into groups of various sizes, I shadowed one of our speakers, Dr. Miyun Chung, to Room 504 and settled in as the seminar-style focus group began. This particular workshop was designed to foster interaction and discussion about the issues that women have to face as ministers and missionaries so that we might learn from each others’ stories and struggles as we helped and prayed for one another.
Now I can give you a summary of the workshop. I can give you the minutes of the meeting and how we structured our time. I can even gather the notes from the participants and put them online so that everyone can see what we talked about. But while we all learned and shared and laughed and griped, that wasn’t the most significant part…the most important thing was precisely that we learned and shared and laughed and griped—not necessarily what.
You see, in that workshop, I caught a glimpse of freedom from prejudice, abuse, rape and poverty. I caught a glimpse of the daughters of God enjoying each others’ presence without worrying about what others thought about them or where their “place” was. Their place is here…at WOGA and in that workshop. At first, people were shy and rightly so. It’s a bunch of strangers and just because the strangers are all of the same gender, it doesn’t make it any easier.
However, as Dr. Chung gently coaxed us all into comfort, we began to share. First our names, then our lives and then our struggles. As we talked we realized that we were just a group of women, not much different from the generation before us or after us. Though our circumstances may be difficult, though times change and expectations are deflated to exceed—though opportunities come and go…we are just a group of women. We are just a group of women who love God. We are just a group of women who claim Jesus as our first love. We are just a group of ordinary women who share an extraordinary God. If we can’t share in that, then nothing else matters.
