News

The facts alone are enough to make you weep in despair.

• Women and girls make up just over half of all people with HIV, and young women in sub-Saharan Africa are as much as eight times more likely than men to have HIV, according to a UNAIDS report (a).
• Seventy million women and girls in 29 countries have experienced female genital mutilation, according to UNICEF (b).
• Girls still are less likely than boys to be in school. Two out of three illiterate adults are women (c).
• Every 90 seconds of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth (c).
• Violence against women and girls remains a global pandemic, violating women’s rights and perpetuating harm in every country and community (c).
• Child marriage is a widespread practice that can tear girls from school and spur high rates of maternal illness and death. Millions of women and girls face abuse in what should be the sanctuary of their own homes, according to a U.N. report (c).

As TWR’s ministry to women around the world, we at Project Hannah find these facts and figures to be intolerable.

We believe two overarching truths impel Christian action on these problems. First, God has the power to change abusive social practices by changing the lives of the individuals making up that society. And second, just as much as they need protection from these abuses and inequities, women need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is the same Jesus, after all, who defended Mary for neglecting her kitchen chores to hear him speak, who violated social norms to reveal to the woman at the well that he was the long-awaited Messiah, and who held up a notoriously sinful woman as an example of repentance because she treated him with love and dignity.

The popular slogan “think globally, act locally” has a lot to recommend it, but we encourage you to keep the emphasis on action:

• Act socially: Invite friends to your home or a coffee shop to raise awareness, learning from DVDs and other materials about the plight of women. Share that month’s Project Hannah prayer calendar. Invite them to join you in receiving the calendar and praying through it each month. And consider together how you could pool your financial resources to help locally and around the world.
• Act locally: Volunteer at a pregnancy crisis center, at a women’s shelter or with a women’s prison ministry.
• Act globally: If you are already praying through the Project Hannah prayer calendar each month, thank you and don’t stop! If you are new to Project Hannah, consider joining our international prayer movement or seek other global prayer initiatives to get involved in. And give to missions that share the gospel with women in unthinkable circumstances.

In the final analysis, though, we would do well to remember that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel in the 21^st century. The Bible set the standard millennia ago. Read and then live out the words of Proverbs 31:8-9:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Read the entire Hannah's Heartbeat newsletter and download earlier newsletters as well.

(a) UNAIDS REPORT ON THE GLOBAL AIDS EPIDEMIC 2010 (Page 12, Paragraph 3)

(b) THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN UNICEF Special Edition 2009 (Page 8)

(c) UNWomen Annual Report 2010-2011 (Pages 2, 3, 14 and 15)