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Charis Around
the World
Tidbits From Ebony
by Elizabeth Carmichael
Man
Murders His Wife for Giving Birth to a Girl
What is it like to give birth in a war zone?
Estorai
trembled against her contractions. Feeling alone and helpless,
she willed from the depths of her soul for this baby to be a boy.
In all of her 22 years, nothing had seemed to go her way. Her
parents needed money, so they waited as long as they could, but
finally had to give in and allow him to marry her. They got
their money and she was allowed to maintain a relationship with
them. More than she could have hoped for. The first
pregnancy was a joyful time. There were promises that beatings
would stop and more provisions would be made when he saw his son.
It wasn't Allah's will. Her daughter entered the world unknown
and already despised by her own father.
Estorai shared with her family that her husband wasn't pleased she
had delivered a girl. She had prayed for months and months
that this second baby would be a boy. Her soul was torn
between the need to deliver him and the desire to keep her inside,
safe and warm. Labor took over. She had been left alone,
again, until she either lived or died through childbirth. Her
own home had never felt so much like an enemy to her as she pulled
her sweet daughter through her legs and up to her chest.
In ecstasy and exhaustion, Estorai surrendered to fate, rolled onto
her side and allowed her child to nurse out her placenta.
Estorai stared at the baby's face blankly, already memorizing every
detail of this very familiar soul in a body so new to her eyes.
What a feast of newness, movement, breath and innocence.
Then, a knock on the door to the room.......
Is this scenario just a cultural problem? Is it a depravity
problem? Could it also be a context problem?
In a war zone, it doesn't matter.
Estorai lives, and births, in the midst of decades of war. She
has only ever known war. Little girls, by the hundreds, are
attacked with acid and poison just for going to school. Bombs
from the sky land, unexpectedly, in her neighbors' houses.
Shots are fired through the streets on a daily and nightly basis.
She thinks there is a place outside with no war. She hopes
someday she will see it.
In a war zone, her hope doesn't matter.
Whatever your political views, may I dare to say something to your
heart of hearts? .....beyond support of troops....beyond
patriotism......beyond holy wars......to the eternal condition of
human souls.
Souls are loved.
Souls are purchased in blood....not fighting blood.
Sacrificial Lamb blood.
Souls are precious and patiently waited upon, desiring that none
would perish.
Souls do not die.
But, they are born.
My worldview AND my "warview" are beyond flesh and blood
realities.....and waaaay beyond politics. So, in that view of
things, will you allow me to say some truthful things?
War is chaos. It is horrific beyond your wildest imaginations.
It is one of the darkest, most evil contexts for human existence
that I have ever seen or could imagine. It is full of blood
and smoke, urine, fire, feces, screams, silence, shaking, confusion,
weeping, oppression, exhaustion, dissonance, burning flesh, booming,
walls falling, abandoned children, mistakes and victories, betrayals
and boredom, thirst, death, loss....and no rhythm, no way out, no
money, just survival.
Twenty-two year old Estorai and her baby already born, along with
the one striving to get out, live.......in war. But, not for
long.
We only know she had been dead for a while.....and that her husband
had fled. Beyond that, we may never know exactly what
happened. We only know that she lived in a war zone, as did
her husband. He didn't need the pressure and shame of raising
another daughter. He saw his only way out was to kill. I
wonder if she was tired of trying to ward off his threats.
Women giving birth in a war zone risk their lives to get prenatal
care. The risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time
is so high that often their families forbid them from even getting
regular blood pressure checks. "What if the clinic is bombed
today?"
Women giving birth in a war zone often do not know where their next
meal is coming from. The men who care for them bear a huge
burden, risking their own lives to provide for their families.
Women giving birth in a war zone have ONLY one hope of
power--manipulation of the spiritual realm. I have never met a
woman in Ebony who refused prayer. I have rarely ever seen an
infant who did not have an amulet pinned to their clothes to ward
off evil. Against all scientific proof and teaching, women
will still care for their babies through traditions that seem so
irrational in the West....just so that evil will not have power over
the child.
Women giving birth in a war zone are desperate, at the most basic of
human levels, to survive. Sometimes they will sacrifice
themselves for their children. Other times, if they believe
their child is destined to die.....they will lay it on the floor and
move on, within seconds after giving birth. Oh, the
psychological impacts that plague these women!
In a war zone, it doesn't matter. Somehow, only survival
matters. Only doing the next thing. Living the next
moment.
Even in a war zone, however, it seemed to matter to Estorai's
husband that she bear a son.
What of the fact that the book Muslims consider Holy, the Qu'ran,
teaches that being ashamed of female children is a sin? And,
the fact that the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (often a more
powerful cultural force than even the Qu'ran) teaches that someone
who raises daughters benevolently will escape hell?
Whatever your reaction may be to these teachings, the issue at hand
remains--in a war zone, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense because, it is a war
zone.
Are you catching my drift yet? :-) I don't want to depress
you. I don't want you to cry or hate, or disbelieve me.
But, I don't know how else to explain to you what it is like for
them. And, what it is like to try to bring small, little
glimmers of truth to them--to their lives and to their births.
It can feel like squirting a water gun in the face of all the fires
of hell.
But, guess what.
In a war zone......
......that's right.
It doesn't matter.
Any drops of water are still water, and to the "least of these," we
are promised the value of that water is multiplied. Sometimes
there is someone on the edges of those fires. Close enough to
pull out. That is my image of redemption. He traded
places with them in propitiatory, passionate, consuming love.
I can just pull them into me, wrap my arms around them and,
hopefully, hopefully, see the flames fall off of them.
All is fair in love and war?
In my own experience, all is completely unjust, unfair, and horrific
in war.
Except, of course,
when there is the smallest glimmer
of love
in the midst of the darkness.
A woman holding her child, safely, finished bleeding, nursing her
newborn, free to rest, hydrated, nourished with well cooked food,
given space to gaze at her new Love......this is a VICTORY!
For a moment.......let the nations rage!......life has survived the
brutal chaos.
Lord, God in Heaven, may each life born THIS very day, THIS very
hour, mark a history changing moment for the peoples of Ebony.
In Your own gentle midwifery skills, bring forth world
changers....safely. Guide and protect them. Bless them.
Keep them. Let your face shine upon them. And, give them
peace.
Amen,
E.C.
Our International Charis
Family
Your stories from around the world touch us and we pray for your
safety.
Thanks, Love and Blessings to every one of you! |
