Through the Eyes of a Woman

Many tears flowed Commemoration ceremony for the Victims of National Socialism on January 27, 2022, at the German Reichstag. How could it be otherwise? Inge Auerbacher, 87, who had survived Theresienstadt with her parents, told how she was torn from her happy childhood in a small Swabian town. Twenty relatives were murdered and many of the families who were with her in Theresienstadt were also sent to Auschwitz to certain death. That she, of all people, remained alive is like a miracle. For four years, even after the family emigrated to the United States, she struggled to live, having contracted tuberculosis from the terrible conditions, malnutrition, confinement, and filth in Theresienstadt. Only the invention of streptomycin saved her life. She summarized what she had experienced at the end of her speech as follows: "Summa summarum. As far as I know, I am the only child among all the deportees  from Stuttgart who returned . 20 people from our family were murdered by the Nazis. ...

This week, instead of writing a blog, I will be reading the book by Dr. Denis Mukwege, The Power of Women [1] . Dr. Mukwege is a person I have long admired and respected for his life of service to humanity and particularly for his advocacy of women’s rights. As a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the gynecologist has a message to the world about the suffering of women in his native, war-torn torn country, the  Democratic Republic of Congo. But his perspective encompasses the whole world. The Power of Women is a book I would like to recommend to all who are opposed to violence and abuse in general, but in particular against women. I am sure that it will make a deep impact on your thinking and attitudes. It is not only the story of Dr. Mukwge's own life, but it shows the need for maternal health care in one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman. He also shows how strong woman are in spite of everything they are subjected to as a result of women being considered of...

Do you know matryoshkas? These wooden dolls hidden within each other are typical souvenirs from Russia and Ukraine, so we have brought them home from our travels and they are displayed on a shelf in our living room. My daughter asked me to help her with a sewing project. She needed a series of soft matryoshkas for the babies in the church for a special occasion. As I was sewing them I started musing about my first encounter with matryoshkas. We moved to England when I was eleven years old. We traveled on a Russian ship from my native Finland to our new home country. My parents bought a matryoshka from the ship’s souvenir shop and I spent a lot of time opening the wooden dolls and putting them back into each other again. The dolls are all painted in the same design and look like each other, except that each one is smaller than the previous doll so that they will fit inside each other. Our matryoshkas were painted in the traditional red and yellow colors, but somebody had made a mi...

      I attended a seminar at church once where the pastor was speaking about parenting. He quoted something that reminded me of what I had learned as a young girl: The king upon his throne has no higher work than has the mother. The mother is queen of her household. … Let her realize the worth of her work …. Her work is for time and for eternity (Ellen G. White,  Adventist Home,  p. 231). My mind went back through the years, thinking about my life. While at university I had read many books by Ellen White. As one of the founders of my church, her writings were influential. I tried to put into practice what I was reading, but even then I realized that she had lived in a different age. As a born feminist, I struggled to reconcile my values with Ellen’s counsel such as I understood it. She was very supportive of women, but still saw women’s first responsibility to the family. My mother had been a homemaker all her life, but I did not want to follow in her...

An article published by UN Women in the last days of the year looking at sixteen defining moments for gender equality in 2021 caught my attention yesterday. We tend to hear more about all the bad news, but some things have been good for women in the past year. I would like to reflect on some of the developments and events. The Political World We already have several women in the leadership of nations, but in 2021 eight more countries elected or swore in their first woman Head of State or Government, with Barbados, Estonia, and Moldova even having women as both President and Prime Minister for at least part of the year. Kaja Kallas took office in January as Estonia’s first woman Prime Minister. Samia Suluhu Hassan became Tanzania’s first woman President in March. In May, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa was elected Prime Minister of Samoa. June saw Robinah Nabbanja nominated to the role of Prime Minister of Uganda. Najla Bouden Ramadhane was named Tunisia’s Prime Minister in September, making...

   This piece was written by my sister, Sinikka Dixon PhD This year is different from any other year before, but I would like us to remember the greatest and most important news ever told to mankind. We have become tired of the constant news of the pandemic and various catastrophes. We used to think, no news is good news, meaning if we hear no news everything is all right. Now we are bombarded by news day and night and none of it is good. With all of this negative messaging, we tend to forget that there is good news in God’s word, the Bible. I would like to remind us of the real meaning of the Christmas message, the good news that can give us hope not just for a few days during this season but for every day of our lives. Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” In Isaiah 7:14 “The Lord himse...

Yesterday I found a book in the book exchange booth outside our church that fascinates me. It was written by Lea Rabin in 1997 titled "Rabin  -  Our life, His Legacy." When Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish settler at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995, the world was horrified. The Oslo Accords had just been signed and we hoped that a lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians could be achieved. Yitzchak Rabin saw only one path for which there was no alternative - the path of peace. He believed that the Palestinians also wanted peace and needed it as much as the Israelis. And yet, this peace is long overdue. Every year, a Peace Light is lit by a child in Bethlehem and it is distributed from the 3rd Advent Sunday.  Austrian radio initiated this beautiful tradition in 1986. The light is then brought to Vienna by plane, and from there, delegations of scouts pick up the light to distribute it in their home countries. When we spent Christmas in an ...