JULY 2001

HEADLINES

God Leads, Blesses and Uses Women

Finland Elects First Female Union Secretary

Illiteracy: Facts & Quotes

July Editorial

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God Leads, Blesses and Uses Women

Evelyn Glass is the Family and Women's Ministries director for the
Mid- American Union, NAD.

She writes: Last week I had gone to Ortonville, Minnesota to speak for the Kiwanis Club's Prayer Breakfast. They had a full hall and it went really well. The Lord blessed. There were people and ministers there from the Catholic, Methodist, Congregationalist, Lutheran and Baptist churches and maybe more I didn't know about. An ex-Catholic priest came and talked to me after and said this was the first time their speaker had talked on prayer for the prayer breakfast in the 20 plus years he had been attending. He was very appreciative.

(That same day)...I spoke on "Shoes, Shoes, Shoes" at a Women's Ministries program; they had decorated the tables with gold spray painted shoes on boxes covered with pastel colored organza. The food for the supper was incredibly colorful and oh, soooo good. Had a good attendance.

I did the "Shoes, Shoes, Shoes" talk for the Business and Professional Women's Luncheon here in my community a couple of weeks ago. The next Sabbath when I got home from church there was a message on our answering machine wondering if they had the right number and if I was the one who had spoken that week in Red Lake Falls. After sundown I called her back and she said her friend's husband had been at the luncheon with his secretary and came home and told his wife that she and her mother would really have enjoyed the talk. So she was calling to ask me to speak for their Mother-Daughter Banquet at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Thief River Falls. This is one of the large Lutheran churches in town. I will speak there the 16th. It is almost frightening how quickly word of mouth travels. The Lord is in control.

Love,
Evelyn

One of our devotional book authors, Patricia Kovalski shares with us:

....The planning committee for the women's retreat asked if I would have a short devotional talk at the prayer breakfast on Sunday morning. I chose to speak on intercessory prayer. In my talk I used as an illustration, my devotional from In God's Garden, April 24, about our son's auto accident when he was seventeen.

After I finished the devotional talk two ladies were waiting to speak to me. I want to share with you what the first one told me.

A year ago she was not attending church. A friend of hers sent her the 2000 Women's Devotional, In God's Garden. She read it every day and was especially touched by the story of our son's auto accident. A few months after reading about our son, her eighteen year old daughter was in a very serious auto accident. She was not expected to live. While this lady and her husband were in the hospital waiting room, she called her mother and asked her to bring the Bible and women's devotional. This lady and her husband read the Bible and the story of our son's accident over and over. That evening, and during the next six days, they were finally able to pray, "Thy will be done." On the sixth day, her daughter died. But she told me that the devotional brought her back to the church. She misses her daughter terribly, but knows she will see her again when Jesus comes. She is rejoicing to be back in church again, following the Lord. This mother has xeroxed copies of my devotional, carries them in her purse, and shares them with others. Needless to say, I had goosebumps when she finished telling me this experience.

I had written this story nearly two years before it was published. Our son's accident had happened nearly twenty-six years earlier; but the Lord knew this dear mother would need to read about it in the year 2000. He impressed her friend to send a copy of, In God' Garden.

Patricia Kovalski

Ruth Lennox is the WM director in British Columbia, Canada. Both she and her husband, John, are physicians. She shares:

I really do appreciate your concern about my eye and taking the time to write to inquire about it.

Yes I had cataract surgery on my right eye last November. For the first two weeks things went well and it was during those two weeks that I wrote the devotional. Unfortunately when the letter came back asking for a lengthened devotional I was feeling pretty sorry for myself because the cornea had clouded over and vision was greatly diminished. I had just been told it was getting worse, that it would be permanent, and the only hope was a corneal transplant; the wait would be about 6 months. I was thinking of giving up my position in Women's Ministries. We were planning to go to Nepal as volunteers this summer anyway so I would be away for almost 3 months. Many people were praying for me, and God heard those prayers. One week later my vision suddenly cleared! The cloud was gone and what a relief that was.

I can only be thankful to God and very humbled to think He would heal my one eye when there are so many with much worse vision. I have not resigned from WM, we are going to Nepal on May 28th, and the WM committee members will keep things going in the meantime. Please pray for my ministry here and in Nepal where we will be doing general practice medicine and I will also do some WM programs.

Best wishes and God bless,
Ruth

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Finland Elects First Female Union Secretary

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Finland elected its first female union secretary, Pastor Sibrina Kalliokoski, during its quinquennial session in May. This is a first also in the Trans-European Division. Before her election, Kalliokoski was editor of the church paper and Mission magazine. She succeeds Joel Niininen who is retiring.

Anna-Liisa Halonen was re-elected as the union treasurer, thus making the Finnish Union probably the first union in the world church to have 2 women as officers.

Congratulations to the Finish Union, and to Pastor Sibrina Kalliokoski.

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Illiteracy: Facts and Quotes

Women represent 2/3 of more than one billion adult illiterates who have no access to basic education.

The education of women has a positive effect on family income and national productivity. Women's earning capacity and productivity increases with higher levels of education. 905 million men and women, almost a quarter of the world's adult population, are illiterate. 1993 World Education Report. About 650 million women are illiterate.

"Years of neglect have left very high illiteracy rates among adult (especially rural) women in most developing countries. High gaps also exist in women's educational achievements. Women and girls in both developed and developing countries still do not have equal access to education and training resources. United Nations, Focus on Women, "Literacy: A Key to Women's Empowerment."

In some South Asian and African countries, the illiteracy rate for adult women is over 80%. Among women aged 25 years and above, illiteracy rates are 93.4% in Nepal, 89.2% in Pakistan, 98.3% in Burkina Faso, 91% in Mali and 90.4% in Togo. The World's Women 1995: Trends and Statistics.

Of the 191,000,000 adults in the United States, 21-23%, or some 40 to 44 million, cannot manage a checking account, fill out a job application, read street signs, or read to their children. Twenty percent of those with the worst literacy skills have high school diplomas.

Illiteracy in rural areas continues to be high in most regions, even in countries where urban women have made significant progress. This is sharpest in Latin America where the rural illiteracy rate among women aged 15-24 is 25% compared with 5% in urban areas. In Asia and the Pacific, rural rates are double urban rates (43% compared with 22%), and in Africa three quarters of rural women aged 15-24 are illiterate, compared with less than half in urban areas. United Nations, Focus on Women, Literacy: A Key to Women's Empowerment.

In the United States, one in five parents cannot read a bedtime story or Sabbath School lesson to their children.

Where 50% or more of the adult population cannot read, teaching literacy is the best way to plant churches.

The children of educated mothers are more likely to succeed in school, more so than if only the father is educated. Their daughters are more likely to attend school, do well and graduate. It is almost impossible to conceive of the children of an educated mother being illiterate. If you educate a man you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family. CJ. E. Kwewgyir Aggrey, Ghanian educator, 1875-1927.

Before we begin any major literacy program in a community, we must do research

We need to understand:

• how large the illiteracy problem is,
• what its root causes are,
• what the barriers are,
• what the resources are,
• why people want to learn, and
• what they expect to read and write.

How To Get Involved— What You and the Church Can Do:

• Read to yourself
• Read to a child
• Read to a shut-in
• Create a literacy awareness in your congregation
• Find out about literacy programs in your area
• Assess what type of program is still needed
• Make a financial contribution to a literacy program
• Set up a program
• Provide tutoring space in your church
• Become a tutor
• Direct a program
• Drive a student to class
• Provide baby sitting service during the tutoring session
• Give a gift for reading materials
• Get involved in your community's education system
• Be knowledgeable about your local board of education
• Advocate for equal education for all

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