A couple of weeks ago, the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (GACEIR) met via Zoom for our winter meeting. In addition to working to review our work on actions referred to us from GA225, we spent time in worship and devotion. On Thursday, we remembered the church’s commitment to stand in solidarity with our siblings who are experiencing violence by wearing black. We invite you to join us each Thursday to stand with and pray for the end of violence in all areas of our lives.
Every Thursday, I try to wear black to stand in solidarity with my siblings who are experiencing violence. Some days I forget, but working from home gives me the opportunity to correct it. But those who experience violence can’t forget, because they live with the trauma of it every day. What if we, in our daily lives, loved others like God in Christ loves them? Would we turn a blind eye to the violence and injustice we know is happening around us? What if we lived in a world that did not tolerate violence? What if the church stood as a voice against violence?
Despite years of ongoing advocacy by civil rights activists and social justice advocates, violence against women in Puerto Rico remains an ongoing issue. In January, recently elected Gov. Pedro Pierluisi declared a state of emergency because of it.
Lydia Cordero Cabrera has a difficult job. As general director for a crisis center in Mexico, she works daily with women who are facing life-and-death situations in their homes. The center, Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis, is in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
A standing-room-only crowd heard a stunning testimony, and more, from domestic abuse survivors as worshippers gathered in the Presbyterian Center’s chapel Wednesday for a service marking Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The service was sponsored by PC(USA)’s Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries (RE&WM) and Presbyterian Women.
We celebrate the World Day of Prayer for Latin American Women on the second Friday in September. One of the motivations to celebrate this day has been the various forms of violence against women, which are increasingly deepened through their different typified manifestations, and even when some have not yet been typified, they are still provoking psychological, emotional and physical damage without dismissing their death of our women.
