February Mission Minute

It began one evening in 2003 a candle-lit room in Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia.  

A young woman named Leymah Gbowee gathered a group of 20 women and invited them to share their stories. They spoke of husbands and sons murdered, sisters and daughters raped, and children dying from hunger- the brutal results of the country’s civil war that began in 1989.

These women had mourned in silence until Leymah urged them to take action in the name of peace. Soon the group of 20 grew to thousands.

Known as the “women dressed in white,” the “Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace” marched, prayed, and picketed in silence and demanded meetings with government and rebel leaders. With Leymah at the helm, their non-violent movement helped to successfully end Liberia’s 14-year civil war.

Leymah admits that she never believed her efforts would take her where she is today, including winning the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2011.  She was simply trying to secure a future for her six children.

“The one way I see us changing this world is by speaking up, standing up,” Leymah says. “It’s time to say to the evils of this world, ‘Go back to the shadows, because the good is taking in the light.’”

Since childhood, Leymah has been an active member of the Lutheran Church of Liberia, a companion church of the ELCA. She attended Lutheran schools, and her “first connection with God came from attending the Lutheran church.”

Later Leymah became president of the women’s organization at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Monrovia, and she worked as a case worker for the Lutheran Church in Liberia’s Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Program, supported by the ELCA. As a case manager, Leymah was sent to work with child soldiers, a “transforming” experience for her.

Leymah was the recipient of the ELCA International Leadership Development scholarship that supported her studies in peace building at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 2005.

“Providing opportunities for education and training are key ways in which we accompany our global companions in their efforts to expand their leadership and institutional capacities,” says Tammy Jackson, director of the ELCA churchwide program. 

Like Leymah, we have all have a story to tell. We cannot keep quiet about what we have seen and heard!

Our ELCA, sixty-five synods participate in over 120 international companionships. These companionships extend the bilateral relationships between our churches and Lutheran church bodies in other countries. “When companions engage one another in authentic relationships, everyone's lives are changed,” says Peggy Contos Hahn, 
Assistant to the Bishop for Global Mission. Your congregation’s Mission Support dollars helped make Leymah’s story possible. Thank you!

For more information on the companion synod program, go to www.elca.org/companionsynod or click here.

Christine Donahue
Mission Interpreter Coordinator
cedonahue@gmail.com