ASSIGNMENT
Based on your readings and the lecture materials this week, share one important concept that stood out to you and explain what impact it has on you as a missionary. Article is listed below.
Challenges for Missionary Women
Single Women
Over the years, God has called many single women into his service overseas as missionaries. Whether like Lottie Moon they turned down would-be husbands because they were not ready to go with them as missionaries, or whether they had other motives to remain single, these women have made an incalculable contribution to the cause of missions. While in some ways they may be more vulnerable because they lack the support of a full nuclear family around them like their married counterparts, these ladies have been particularly successful in going places others dared not go, and in achieving influence in areas where others had not yet gone.
Many times single women would bond with local families or groups in which they became like family to them. This meant that often they had a deeper understanding of cultural nuances and societal expectations than other missionaries. The fact that they were not distracted with the need to spend a significant amount of their time in home-making, caring for their children, and providing them with an education has meant that single women had considerably more disposable time to devote to their work—often with tremendous results. Where would the world be without a Mother Theresa, and countless other single women who have served alongside her as missionaries in all the world!
Single women on the field do face special challenges. These may include loneliness, pressures to marry, unclear social status in the host culture, lack of clout in decision-making, finding appropriate living arrangements, and having to cater to multiple sets of role expectations.
One area in which women may face special challenges is tied to the culturally assigned roles for men and women in their host culture. Obviously both men and women equally will have to make important cultural adjustments, and every society defines gender expectations distinctly, so that men will have to learn how men behave in their adopted society, and women will have to learn how women behave in their adopted society. In practice, however, the harder challenges seem to fall upon women. Sometimes dress can be a challenge.
In Muslim societies missionary women often debate whether to wear a burkha which covers them totally.
Task:
Is that simply cultural dress, or a religious identifier?
Does wearing a burkha also mean submitting to a role for women that is in many ways diametrically opposed to the values that are instilled in their own home churches?
Does identification to the local culture imply subjecting oneself to those practices as well, or should the missionaries model a different way to live in these areas?
