by Ruth Prudente

Some Bible Women making plans in Tonga Image by: GBGM Mission News Bible Women literacy group in Malaysia Image by: GBGM Mission News

Ruth Prudente is a former staff member of the General Board of Global Ministries.

Five hundred and fifty Bible/Gospel women from nine countries-India, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Samoa-are now trained to share the Good News of Jesus. Bible/Gospel women are empowered to lead Bible studies with their local communities while teaching literacy skills for social change and transformation, these women have touched the lives of more than 55,000 since the initial Bible Women’s training was launched in November 2000.

Today’s Bible Women’s Program of the Women Division evolved from the mission of our founding mothers. When Isabella Thoburn and Clara Swain went to India in 1869 to begin a school and clinic, they went speaking only English. Access to grassroots women was severely restricted. In a world where women were rarely taught or given medical attention, they began to teach several women to read, write and sing English using the Bible as their primary resource as well as administer medical attention where they could. After only two years of preparing these few indigenous women, the first Bible Women moved out into the areas where most of the women lived. Empowered with the Gospel, and knowledge. Bible Women from India went forth.

In the shifting political and denominational realities of the middle of the 20th century, the Bible Women’s program almost disappeared. Through the research of Ruth Prudente in 1999, we learned that that, the model of pioneering female missionaries training women to become Bible Women to bring the Good News to the poor, sick and hungry was still a relevant model for today. The local issues might be different, but indigenous women were still the ones to identify the issues, and work collaboratively to develop the spiritual and knowledge base to address them-AND to do the primary outreach work.

Some 55,000 women and men have heard the Good News during the last three years. The program is growing. Mission goes full circle as United Methodist Women members who are ethnically Hmong-American will be training sixty of their Laotian Methodist sisters this coming year. They will return home to Laos to share the Gospel as they teach literacy for health, economic development and women’s rights, despite dangerous religious conditions. Pakistan, central and northern India, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam will all be sites of upcoming training. In 2005 the Women’s Division will cross ancient Christian divides as we work with the Egyptian Coptic Church on their post-literacy work in Egypt, Rwanda and Burundi.
Listen to a witness shared through the Women’s Society of Christian Service report to the Sarawak Iban Annual Conference. Remember, this is your undesignated mission giving at work:

“In this training we had learned examples of many women in the Bible who are full of wisdom, full of courage. Humble, that God can use them for His purpose to extend His word to the family, to society, to the least, the last and the lost. It has given us the spirit to continue our mission.”

	See Also... Topic: Bible |  Education |  United Methodist Church |  Women |  Geographic Region: Asia and the Pacific Islands |  Source: Mission Stories
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Date posted: Nov 19, 2004