Episcopal Women Find Models During Visit to Philippines
Episcopal News Service. March 7, 1997 [97-1712]
Ann Smith, Director of the Episcopal Church's Women in Mission and Ministry.
(ENS) A delegation of Episcopal women recently traveled to three Asian countries visiting with high ranking officials representing the church, government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGO), and speaking with women from the grassroots in six cities and 20 rural communities. They returned home in mid-February with many stories of successful ministries by Anglican women -- and a dream for another Anglican Encounter to be held in the Philippines in the year 2000.
Six women attended the women-to-women trip sponsored by Women In Mission and Ministry of the Church Center and returned filled with hope for the future, buoyed by remarkable changes that the women's movement is making. The Episcopal women of the Philippines are living examples of the African proverb, "To train a man is to train an individual to train a woman is to train a nation."
"In 1983 I spent a month in Taiwan and the Philippines as a Province 8 representative," said Nancy Grandfield, conference coordinator for Women In Mission and Ministry. "I was the only female present. The women attended to our needs, serving food and peeking curiously at me from the kitchen. In helping to organize this trip, I was completely unprepared for the exciting and hopeful change in the roles of church women that I experienced. Today the articulate, involved knowledgeable women we met are eager to share in our mutual issues, leadership training, community economic development and health reform education. They want to take a leadership role in planning for an Anglican women's event in 2000. The shy cooks of 14 years ago are now serving the church in new ways of leadership."
The Church of Sweden has heavily invested development money in the women's leadership program of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines. They believe that good development work begins and ends with women at the local level, and the plan as developed by the Episcopal Church Women of the Philippines met all of their criteria. This investment has resulted in not only developing women's leadership in the Episcopal Church but also in community organizing and development projects.
Rosemarie Maliaman, program officer for gender and development of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, is spending a month in Sweden to tell the good news to the Swedish people whose money has made it all possible.
"Our trip to Upi, which is located in the Episcopal Diocese of the Southern Philippines, was a hardship both physically and mentally," said Jeanne Woody, past president of the Episcopal Church Women in the Diocese of Southern Virginia. "The first leg of the trip was about 20 kilometers over what could not possibly be called a road, it was a rut after rut for two hours. I was unprepared to see women working at their churches in such jobs as preparing gravel to pave areas around the entrances or raising pigs and goats to earn money to maintain or improve their facilities."
Woody said that she has been actively involved with the ECW in many capacities for 20 years but that she had "never experienced such commitment to the church as the women of the Philippines display under the most adverse conditions. ECW members are actively fighting the loggers who are demanding their forests. They recognize the detrimental environmental impact this logging had and yet they continue their opposition even under threats."
People in the area live with the reality of violence. On the road to Upi, a person had been murdered just prior to the departure of the convoy that escorted the women from the United States. On the next day a Roman Catholic bishop was assassinated in a city not too far from Cotobato, where the Episcopal diocese is located. Church people who are working for peace are especially vulnerable to rebel uprisings in both the southern and northern parts of the Philippines.
While visiting the northern dioceses, Inez Saley, a member of the delegation who now lives in New Jersey, received a tremendous homecoming from the town of Sagada where her brother is the mayor. She is either related to or knows people in every place the women visited. "I never though I'd have a homecoming like this," she said as she introduced the group to her mother, a former ECW president. "I thought I knew the Philippines but I've learned a lot."
The planning for the visit to the Philippines began at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing where the Anglican Women's Network hosted a dinner.
"Eighteen months ago, somewhere between Helsinki and Beijing as the weeks of the Peace Train rolled, I promised Rose Maliaman that I would come to the Philippines," said the Rev. Jane Gould, Episcopal chaplain at MIT in Massachusetts. "This trip allowed me to keep my promise."
For the last three years Gould has used a Kellogg Foundation Leadership Fellowship to study community development. "The commitment of the church of the Philippines to addressing the crisis of Third World debt, to developing the capacity of women and men to lead within their church and communities, to creating community cooperative and credit union, and providing financial and technical assistance for income generating projects stands as a model for the rest of the Anglican Communion." she said, Gould admitted that she can't wait for the year 2000 because, "we all have so much to learn from our sisters in the Philippines and around the world."
The trip began in Taiwan where the U.S. women met with ECW members and NGOs. "Bishop John Chien, the bishop of Taiwan, arranged many gatherings for us to meet with wonderful women." said Sr. Helena Marie. "On one occasion, representatives of 11 different women's organizations met with us at the YWCA to give us an overview of their work on women's issues," she said. "This meeting was a first event for all of them, it was a catalyst for forming a permanent network. It was thrilling to be a part of the process of their connecting."
In Korea the Anglican women had no knowledge of organized women's work in the United States. They had been told no other women's office existed in the Anglican Communion so they might as well eliminate theirs. Because of the visit they are now encouraged to keep their office and to stay interconnected to other Anglican women.
Participants are convinced that another Anglican Encounter in 2000 will enable the Anglican Communion to carry out the commitments made at the Encounter in Brazil, in March 1992 and at the UN Fourth World Conference On Women to nurture overseas partnerships and strengthen women's organizations. The women of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines talked about going from "caterers to catalyst" and asked their visitors to walk with them as true partners, learning from one another and sharing dreams and resources.
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