It's been about 4 weeks and you begin to not only feel the normal feelings of bloating and cramping as your period comes....it is fear you feel more inside yourself. Each month as you begin your period you are told to leave and go stay in a shed until you are done. Should you choose to step back onto the porch while menstruating, the people of the house and animals will get sick and be cursed. The gods will become angry and your hands will likely curl up and become deformed. So you sit in a shed not big enough to lay down in for 5-7 days, alone, dirty, and rejected.
Others will spend this week of menstruation within the same house as their family, but not allowed to touch their family members that they just sat with the week before on the couch reading a book. They cannot meet at the table to eat with their family and share in their day. In fact, they cannot even touch the table that they will eat at or be in the kitchen during the times of menstruation. Go to church during your period and you will be seen as highly infectious and seen as a portal of viruses. You will be called impure, dirty, untouchable.
You may be reading this and thinking, sure, maybe this happened in some ancient culture but now we are informed and able to embrace this aspect of womanhood. However, these stories were recently told to a NPR reporter by two separate women in India who continually suffer under the cultural and religious beliefs that are present there. (http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/17/449176709/horrible-things-happen-to-nepali-girls-when-they-menstruate-15girls)
One may be quick to assault the thoughts and views of how these women are treated. How could a religion or a developed country be so barbaric and harsh? Let's realize that these countries have great values and see their gods and rules just as importantly as ours and value them. They are looking to use these to protect their families, their daughters, their homes and health. This changes the viewpoint a little when you see past the atrocities. For a moment you see humanity and that we are all working to provide the best for our families and believe in something higher than ourselves.
And yes, I will fight for justice and equality for all but let us not be flippant but sensitive to the bigger issue of womanhood, not a judgment to who has the better infrastructure or perspective. Certainly we have come further than this in America. Texas. Waco. Or have we? Yes, we have become more resourceful in dealing with our periods. We will be able to address our issues within our homes and for the most part feel accepted and welcome.
But what if you don't have a home to come to or access to tampons and pads? You are banished to the shed that our society calls homelessness. There you are left to bleed alone, and many times called impure, dirty and portrayed as untouchable. Others become untouchable to you as they quickly drive past you, as they hand you money but fail to look you in the eye or shake your hand and not allowed into the kitchen where you can be fed and restored. You are left outside, not allowed onto the porch because you may cause something to change inside our homes.
There are women in this community that feel this very way as they not only fight the issue of homelessness or fighting to find a stable and safe place to live for themselves and/or their families. They also face having their period every month without resources and supplies to do so in a healthy and dignified way.
Take Heart Ministries is seeking to be that voice to these women in Waco to say you can be clean, pure and restored. We want to touch these women not only physically with a Love Tote, a bag with a month's supply of feminine hygiene products, cleansing wipes, granola bars, and water. We want to seek out the woman behind the need and get on their level, lift their face and see them for who they are...a woman just like me and you. We want to be honest about these issues and raise awareness into the stigma associated with menstruation but also to begin to see a restoration of women in Waco to rise above and live their life with dignity and hope; everything we all want to be and feel.
Be a part of the excitement that is happening at Take Heart Ministries. We guarantee that 100% of your gift of time, products, finances, and prayers will go to changing the lives of women. And through each woman changed a voice of hope is spoken into her and the spark will become a raging fire of love and restoration.
What will you do to help?
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