Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions Empower Women and You Empower the World

Empower Women and You Empower the World

After we were celebrating the success and beauty of the things we had created together, Fanny stepped up and with authority (and a translator) she thanked us for our friendship and our belief in them, and gifted us with key chains, symbolizing the key to their hearts.

Do you see the difference?

We were sisters.
We were friends.
We were collaborators.
We were partners in great important work.

They were not our charity, and with the strength and dignity and skills and the whispers of Be Free” in our ears, I felt more like their charity than that they were mine.

But I could have NEVER seen it this way on my first “mission trip” as an arrogant high schooler. I thought I could save the world. I thought they needed my money and candy and clothes to be happy.

No. No. And No.

They just need a hint of a way out and they would have created it for themselves and their families just as these women have.

Because happiness has never sat in Nordstroms or Target bags, it’s always been in freedom, in team, in creating, in hope, in friendship, in Jesus. Just all of that.

All of the things we think live in our fenced in suburbs … but is it possible we are the ones to be pitied? We are the ones who have it all and nothing at the same time?

Fanny doesn’t need anything from me … but I need so much from her.

I need her perseverance.
I need her joy.
I need her passion.
I need her skills … the girl has skills!

My prayer for us:

God help our arrogance. Help our honest misunderstanding that we have it better.
Show us a new way—a way that isn’t condescending, that kills words like “us and them.”

Let us be the ones who spread dignity rather than charity.
Let it be true of our generation, that on our watch we empowered rather than disabled. May we be ones that brought friendship instead of pity.

I learned a word yesterday … Duhugurane: Let Us Learn From Each Other.

My sister, my friend, my leader, Fanny … I learned from you. I learned to not be so afraid of my potential, to speak up when I have something to say, to create when it is burning inside of me, to do what I love and what I can do and trust God to let it change the world.

I learned from you.

Thank you, dear friend.