Four Months

Fourth Months from when the police, missionaries, and government officials went into our neighboring village of Fiyawena to warn the people that witch killing was illegal and would carry severe consequences- four months to the day- a woman named Mifila was brutally murdered. 

I'm going to be honest I knew that the warning from the police would only buy these women time. That these people fear the spirits who live above, below, and right beside them, spirits that breathe down their necks, more than the police who are far away…who they can hear coming in the roar of the engine of the airplanes above them. But I really thought it would buy them more than four months. At least a year, I thought. I was wrong. Literally, dead wrong. 

Apparently, there are articles going all over the world about this with Mifila's picture attached and an outcry for justice (we even made the Dredge Report). But we're out here in the middle of the jungle with just our short-wave radio and email that works only half the time. So the only reports that we are reading our coming from the village itself. From the eye-witnesses. From her family. From the ones who are demanding payment because her contaminated blood flowed down into their gardens, splattered on their houses and ruined all their possessions. 

Those are the reports we are hearing. We are also hearing that the government is angry and preparing to come in and do exactly what they said they would do just four short months ago, and we are thrilled to know their plans. We are praying that with actual consequences this will be what finally sets these women free from this horrible label of oppression and brutalization. 

Knowing that the articles are being shared helps. Knowing that there are people who care and are outraged for these innocent women and children makes us feel less alone in this. So, I am asking now that  all of you who read this blog will share these articles (I imagine you can google "Hewa witch killing" to find them) as much as possible to continue to raise awareness about this tragedy. I also ask that if you bought an "I love Witches" shirt from us that you post of picture of yourself in your shirt with the articles. 

 

Please do this in memory of Mifila and all the other women and children who have been murdered as witches and in honor of those who are marked and are still in danger. 

 

It's not a bucket of ice water, but it's something. 

 

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." Psalm 82:3-4 

 

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?" Isaiah 58: 6