Devotional
 Crying Silently
by Dinah Abbey-Mensah
As part of the Trokosi practice in central
Ghana, this young girl has been given as a slave to this priest
(seated) to atone for a crime committed by a member of her family.
In this way, after years of servitude, the crime by her family
member will be forgiven.
Why are so many women
crying silently? The woman in Mark 5:25--34 cried silently for
twelve years before Jesus wiped away her tears and healed her
ailment. Today, many women within the Southern Ewe culture of
the Volta Region in Ghana cry silently throughout their lives.
These innocent women are trapped in a cultural system called
Trokosi, something the traditionalists in Ghana describe as a
multi-purpose mechanism put in place to check heinous crimes,
provide cures, maintain the tradition and culture of the people,
regulate the society and serve as the place to find the truth.
In truth, Trokosi is a cruel and inhumane cultural practice in
which virgins as young as six years old are given up to fetish
priests to atone for the crimes and/or sins committed by male
members of their families. Evil things are being done to the
women of Ghana in the name of religion and culture, and the women
are crying silently in their own corners, as if there is no helper
or savior for them. They dare not show their tears for fear of
retribution. The women in the Trokosi system become outcasts.
Many of them have children while serving in the shrines of the
fetish priests and the priests who father these children offer
no assistance-financial or otherwise-so the number of outcasts
grows and the evil continues.
Can we enumerate all the evil things that women go through in
the name of religion without exposing the guilt and the sin of
the church? Jesus broke cultural norms when dealing with women
in the stories of the Gospels. In those days, a Jewish man was
not allowed to talk with a non-Jewish man, much less a woman,
but Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well and her encounter
with Jesus brought salvation to the whole town (John 4:1--42).
Likewise, a menstruating woman was regarded (in Jesus' time)
as impure and today some denominations continue to capitalize
on this biological function of a woman in order to deny women
ordination into the ministry of the church. But Jesus broke this
cultural barrier by healing the woman with the issue of blood
(Mark 5:25--34).
Although many denominations say women cannot understand or discuss
theology, Jesus often spoke with women about theology and other
matters. Even the woman who was accused of adultery and regarded
as sinful had an encounter with Jesus. So we know what Jesus
said to the women who cried silently in his day, but what is
the church saying to the world's silent women today?
Prayer
Thank you, God, for creating women
in your image.
Help us to treat them as Jesus did, so the church can be more
inclusive
and a place where all women and men will live together in peace.
Amen.
Dinah Abbey-Mensah is currently serving as mission partner
in residence in the Worldwide Ministries Division, PC(USA). In
Ghana she is a pastor, president of the Pastor's Association
of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ghana and a member
of the board of directors of the Institute for Women in Religion
and Culture.
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