Do Justice

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

If any of you have ever wondered about the title of my blog, this is where it comes from. Today I want to address the part about doing justice. I recently listened to a sermon that my mom sent me given by Bethany Dudley at my church back home. She read alot of verses about justice and told us that justice is the second most talked about thing as far as number of verses in the Bible (over 2,000 verses). She told us to think about injustices that make us angry in our lives and to let out a loud cry of frustration. Okay so I didn't let out a cry of frustration because the neighbors might have come knocking but I did later start making a list of the injustices that burn me up inside here in Benin.

In Amos 5 it says "but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream".
Another quote she emphasizes is "it is not that doing justice will help the church, it is that we are not the church until we do justice". I am made in God's image, and I believe that when injustices burn righteous anger in my soul it is the Holy Spirit urging me into action. I think before I have just responded by holding the feelings inward in the form of anger at the state of things, but now I realize that I can do something in my own small way to help.

Injustices:
- Men eat sodabi and drink while their wives and children are hungry and malnourished
- Women are treated and talked about as objects, that can be given or traded. Sex and love and
marriage is a joke to men here
-Teachers and men and even students oppress and force girls and women to have sex (they
force sex for grades or just because they can) It is even depicted in their videos that women
have been raped multiple times but their is no real legal consequence for the men. A
satirical comedy I saw showed a woman confessing to being raped by 5 different men and
the punisher was the chef de village. In the end she had difficulty addmitting that even the
chef had raped her but somehow this was supposed to be the joke. What saddened me was
that as you looked around the bus it was not just the men that were laughing but the women
- There is no school past 3eme or sophomore year equivalent in highschool for the girls in
Toffo and probably many other villages in Benin. They have to go to Houegbo where i live
but many girls either cannot afford it or end up with unwanted pregnancies by teachers or
students
- women are constantly harrassed by men
- girls dont get the same advantages as boys in school
- some children live in fear of their parents and/or teachers because they might be hit for
making simple mistakes
- people over all lack confidence and a positive self image to beleive in themselves that they
can succeed and make a difference. this is not all people, but even when I am trying to do
something people constantly doubt me or are overly suprised when i do something they
didnt think i could do


So response... some of it is in the works and i may not do all of these things but...
- CAMP Glow- empowering girls, a week long camp that I am helping with and bringing two
girls from my commune to participate
- Women's groupements- savings and loans... helping women and their children. by practicing
savings and meeting together we can encourage them to manage their money better
- Possible future mentoring and hangout sessions with informal discussions about issues girls
face at school with girls in Toffo. I am hoping that this can be a new development after
camp Glow
- possible soccer club in Houegbo. there is soccer for boys but not girls
- future life goals.... ambiguous but hopefully as I see now.... maybe I wanted to do these things
already but now i see that God gives me knowledge and skills to help people, but what i
choose to actually do can be much more affective if i partner it with my passions