Women's work

It's a bit past the event...umm...like a month. But, I finally got around to uploading pictures from my camera last night and came across these - taken at Prosser UMC's Spring Fling. The United Methodist Women invited me to come talk with them about women in ministry and I got to share one of my favorite stories with them.

A great-great uncle of mine, James Thoburn had gone to India in the 1860's as a missionary. Frustrated with his lack of ability to connect with women because of the cultural norms of the area, he fired off a letter to his sister. Oh, if she could only come and join him in the work!

Much to his dismay, she wrote back and said, "I’m on my way! " It took her 3 years to do it, but she convinced the Methodist Board of Missions to commission her as a deaconess and send her to India as one of two women missionaries who would focus on education and health care for women. (check out the recent article in UMWs Response) Upon arriving, Isabella promptly started what became in short order the first college for girls in Asia.

Now, this ran counter to a widely-held premise in that region that women were unteachable. Not only was educating women a waste of time, but it threatened to upset a social order based on the superiority and domnance of males. But, Isabella persevered, and the school is still going strong today, providing undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education for women.

Though mortified at first that a woman would claim this kind of calling, her brother developed a new understanding of how God works..... and wrote in his book, My Missionary Apprenticeship:

"It seldom happens that the church is wise to know her day of visitation. When God would have her move forward and take up some new enterprise, it usually happens that God has to beckon often and long before he is obeyed. In 1859, Dr Durbin told me that he was astonished and perplexed by the general wish to engage in missionary work found among the young women of the Church. “If I wanted fifty young ladies,” he said, “I could find them in a week; but when I want five young men, I must search for them for a year or more.” It did not occur to him, it did not occur to any body, that the presence of a conviction so strong and general was an indication of the will of God."

Hmmmm.