Dear sisters and brothers: 
     This past summer was filled with special events for me. I was able to be with my family in California as we celebrated my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary.  Then I participated in a month-long seminar on international feminist theologies along with women from India, Nigeria, Burma, New Zealand, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Japan and the U.S. The seminar was the beginning of three years of studies for a Doctorate in Ministry--a challenging way for me to exercise my brain, learn some new skills for my work here, and wrestle with theological questions emerging from the experience of women throughout the world. I'll be working on the doctorate while continuing my work here; indeed, the academic work will help me reflect on the effectiveness and quality of our ministries with Honduran women.   
     I arrived back in Honduras in mid-August just before a national gathering of rural women sponsored by the Christian Commission for Development (CCD), the organization with which I work. The gathering culminated several months of local and regional meetings in which more than 2000 women around the country had gathered to discuss five themes: women's economic rights, women's political rights, and the rights of women to education, health, and property ownership.  
     It may appear strange to list all these rights in relation to women. Yet in this region women are systematically denied those rights, and are often not at all aware that they have them. For example, Carmen is a woman who's well over 60. She told us that when she was a young girl her father died. Along with her mother and sisters, they'd been left to fend for themselves. Because Carmen's father had produced no sons, all the land he owned was given to his brothers and their sons. His own immediate family received nothing. Carmen grew up and married a man who had no land either. As a result, they've always been landless farm laborers and tenant farmers. While her male cousins have land to pass on to their children, she has nothing. 
     Today, Carmen is part of a concerted effort by women to educate other women about their rights. With help from CCD, she is helping her sisters understand the consequences of failing to struggle for what they are rightfully due. 
     Carmen took an active role in the preparatory gatherings leading up to the national women's meeting. Each of these earlier meetings, carried out during the year leading up to the national gathering, brought together 50-200 women for two days to discuss one of the themes. The three texts they used as points of reference were the Bible, the Honduran Constitution, and several international treaties that Honduras has signed. There were 25 preparatory meetings in all. At the end of each one, a two page summary of the discussion was prepared. These reports served as the main input to the national gathering. 
     In the weeks leading up to the national gathering, a group of women in the south of the country made a one-minute radio "spot" encouraging women to participate as a way of building a national movement of peasant women. The spot talked about how rural women had been powerless for too long, and called for women to discover a new sense of their own power. "Women are going forward," a group of women chanted in the spot, "and those who don't like it can just learn to live with it!" When a radio station in Choluteca started broadcasting the spot, several men called to protest the message as divisive. None wanted to give their name, however. 
     After so much preparation, 150 women--both Catholics and evangelicals--from five different regions of the country finally came together during the first week of September at CCD's retreat center in the mountains north of Tegucigalpa. We really had more than 200 participants, since many of the women brought their small children along, and all the women on CCD's staff participated. 
     Each of the five themes was discussed at length, using the preparatory reports as a base. The women dreamed, then prioritized their dreams, making concrete proposals for change in the organizations they already work with, including CCD. They also talked about forming a national peasant women's organization. Although several peasant organizations already exist, they are generally run by men and aren't always open to issues important to rural women. Since the meeting ended, the discussion of a new organization has continued during followup sessions. 
     This was the sixth such gathering CCD has sponsored in the last eight years. Twenty-five quiet women came to the first one. Sixty showed up for the second one. Hundreds wanted to come to this year's event but we had to limit participation because of space restrictions. I was impressed with the women who participated, who spoke with clear, strong voices about what they've already done and what they'll continue to do to improve the quality of their lives. Most of these women went home to dirt-floored houses in remote corners of the country, but because of this process their children are healthier, they are stronger, they participate in local governments, they organize for better prenatal care or to gain credit for small businesses, and they are able to challenge abusive and violent relationships. They are rereading the Bible from their own experience, and incarnating in their families and villages the abundant life that's promised to them by Jesus in the Gospels. 
     My role during the encounter was to work with other women on developing a theological dialogue during Bible studies and worship services. For the preparatory meetings we designed Bible studies around the question of what kind of power relationships does God want us to construct? Does God want certain people to have power "over others," or for people to have power "together with others"? In the national gathering we continued discussing these questions during times for meditation, group study, and worship. During our last evening together we celebrated our sisterhood and God's understanding of power by reinacting how Jesus washed his disciples' feet. I'll never forget how Suyapa, a Catholic lay pastor from Nacaome, told me afterward how privileged she'd felt to be able to be Jesus. "Because I'm a woman, no one ever asked me to be Jesus before," she said. 
     A lot of the work I did was in the background. I spent a lot of time moving chairs, stuffing folders, greeting visitors, typing documents, yelling at the photocopy machine--helping along with other CCD staff to provide the logistical background necessary for the women to be able to concentrate on sharing and learning from each other. 
     I'm thankful for the privilege of sharing in CCD's ministries of helping all people realize they are created in the image of God. I'm excited about my work here, and I thank you for making it possible through your support for our presence here. Please join with us in praying for these beautiful women as they learn new ways to exercise the power that God gives them. And please know that we keep your ministries in our prayers.