photo by Derrick Knisley

I have to admit that I knew very little about obstetric fistula before I began working with Women’s Ministries at the National Council of Churches in the early spring of 2009.  In fact, I had never heard of it before.  What I did know was that women’s inequality is rampant in our world, in blatant and more subtle ways, infiltrating everything from language to pay-scales to access to resources to quality of life in general.  The systems of power that consistently place “us” over “them,” rich over poor, white over black, humanity over the earth, the very systems that Jesus just as consistently dismantled in his ministry, are all tied into the same structure of power that places “male” over “female.”  If for no other reason, the work to end obstetric fistula is the work of Jesus inasmuch as it is the work to dismantle these systems of oppression.

My theological background comes from my time getting an MDiv at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.  The theological lens of the institution is largely focused on constantly asking who is being left out of the conversation or who is being oppressed.  Searching out these voices, or shutting our own selves up so they can get a word in edgewise, is a deep value of that place and most of its graduates.  With all this in mind, how in the world can a bunch of pretty privileged young women from the United States reach out to join the campaign to end fistula in a way that also upholds those women who have suffered and still suffer from it?  Is there a way, I wondered, that we can do this work not for or on behalf of these women, but in solidarity with them and with women worldwide?

And so “Fistula Stories” was born.  The impetus for this blog-style homepage comes from the desire to be in solidarity.  My hopes are that we can use this space to find the places where all of our stories connect, giving each woman who participates a voice and equally charging each participant to listen.  My colleagues in the United Methodist Church,  Jill Wiley and Linda Bales Todd, are working on an obstetric fistula project as well.  Their program, “Operation Healing Hope,” brings women together to learn about fistula by forming quilting circles.  The baby blankets quilted in these groups, which use fabric made by fistula survivors, can then display fistula information in the group’s church, and afterwards be sent to a mission hospital nursery.  I love the metaphor of quilting also for our project.  What are and were quilting circles but a form of social networking?  And might it be possible for us to think of ourselves as sitting together and working on something bigger than all of us–sewing our stories together as we listen and speak?

Some big dreams.  Let’s just start here.  Let’s get a small group together, meet four times and go through this curriculum, and just see what comes from it.

And it would be great to hear your “fistula story” too…