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Theologian Mark Clarke compares Easter to a midwifery process where “messy and often painful emotions are the passageways to the new, to a rebirth, a resurrection….Through perseverance and support, we can walk into a resurrected life.” That is also a great description of what happens at Bethany House!
There are indeed “messy and often painful emotions” in a house full of young women who have fled their homes and families under dire circumstances, only to find themselves on a dangerous and often life-threatening journey. Why do they undertake a journey that demeans their human dignity? Their reasons are as diverse as their lives. Several have been trafficked by those bearing empty promises of modeling careers or lucrative jobs that would allow them to support their poverty-stricken families at home. Some flee the violence of gangs and threats against their lives and those of their families. Others are fleeing family members who would sell them into early marriage or subject them to female genital mutilation. All carry hope for a better life for themselves and their children—a possibility that is elusive in their country of origin. Most set out knowing the journey will be difficult, but later admit they had no idea of the inhumane and dehumanizing experience that would follow.
Through their own perseverance and resilience and the support of staff, volunteers and benefactors of Bethany House—and, perhaps as importantly, the mutual support they find in one another—the women here begin to “walk into a resurrected life.”
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