Dear Lovely Loyal Reader: I intended to write and share this post weeks ago but due to a hectic holiday schedule and lack of Internet access I wasn’t able to get around to it until now. My apologies.
No more lives torn apart, that wars would never start, and time would heal our hearts. And everyone would have a friend, and right would always win, and love would never end. This is my grown-up Christmas list.
~ from the Christmas song My Grown-up Christmas List
I recently read the book A Thousand Sisters by Lisa Shannon. The book is about the author’s fundraising efforts to support women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and her subsequent travels there. Congo is a place she feels compelled to learn more about and lend aid to after she learns about the war and devastation happening there on an episode of Oprah. The book’s subtitle is My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to be a Woman and her account is just that. The book chronicles tale after heartbreaking tale about the women living in this violence-ridden chunk of the world. In one village it was reported that at least 90 percent of the women living there had been raped. 90 percent. While most of the stories Shannon shares are heartbreaking (and difficult to read at times because they are so incredibly cruel and inhuman) this statistic has stuck with me, and it is because of this statistic that I feel compelled to do something.
I have a lot of really great memories surrounding the holiday season, particularly Christmas (yep many of them of the warm giggly variety that contributed to my blissfully happy childhood). I loved the house all decorated, all warm and glowy. I loved making cookies with Mom and listening to Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas album. I loved a snowy white Christmas day and going to Grandma’s house. And, of course, I loved the presents—the anticipation, the unveiling, the thrill of getting exactly what I wanted. But even with a mother who loves gift giving (and often went overboard when it came to buying for her four wonderful children) it was stressed to me at a young age that there was something more to the season than the material stuff.
My siblings and I stopped giving gifts to each other (because what the heck do you get for your little brother?) and our parents years ago and instead donate to a charity of our choice for Christmas. My mom who, as I mentioned, loves gift giving has continued to spoil us over the years. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year (in addition to my stocking stuffers, you can’t not have stocking stuffers!) and, since I can’t help but want to balance out my happiness (and my thankfulness) with a little giving, and because that statistic (90 percent) keeps haunting me—anytime I walk home in the dark or forget to lock my door at night or am alone in a dodgy public restroom I’m reminded of the fact that in Congo women can’t even walk to get food or clean water for their children without being raped, and that I can do all those perhaps risky things without ever experiencing such a horror—I asked for money to help me adopt a Congolese sister.
Women for Women International is the organization that is going to make this possible, and the organization Lisa Shannon works with to aid women in Congo. Their mission (as stated on their website) is to provide women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies. We're changing the world one woman at a time.
Women for Women offers the opportunity to enroll in a year-long program, through which my financial contributions will aid a woman in my country of choice (Congo). I have yet to enroll so I’m not totally clear on the details yet but it’s a little like adopting a starving bloated belly baby in Africa, a program through which I’ll receive photos of and exchange letters with this woman, my “sister.”
I don’t think this act will change the world. I don’t even know to what extent it will change this woman’s life, if at all. I’m not Mother Theresa and I have no intention of being like her (or desire to be like her for that matter). I’m no saint and I certainly like having nice things and pampering myself. I just think it’s important to balance all that stuff out with a little giving, that and stories about such violence and devastation break my heart and I can’t read about it and not do something.
This world is a big beautiful place and it is full of people, and whether we live here or there, we are all united by the fact that we are human. I’m pretty sure we’re never going to survive unless we can rely on each other to extend a helping hand and a little compassion from time to time. And, while Christmas (or Hanukkah or your birthday or any other gift-giving occasion) is a good time to do so because it’s likely you’re already putting away, or receiving, a little extra spare change, I want to encourage you to do what it is you can to lend some help next time a story breaks, or touches, your heart any time of the year. I encourage you to do what you can with what you have and, just maybe, all us humans can make this world an even more beautiful place together.
Stay tuned for updates on my Congolese sister and please let me know what stories, what charities, are near and dear to your heart.
