I Will Not Keep Silent

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
    for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet, 
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, 
   her salvation like a blazing torch. (Isaiah 62:1)

Something rose up from deep within me. It was almost as if I felt my insides burning, indignation wracking my spirit with a gigantic, Stop! This is not right!



A bit dramatic perhaps. Nonetheless, it came over me as I sat chatting with *Beta and her daughter in Beta's clothing shop. A girl popped into the doorway, looking to be in her young teens, and greeted us with a friendly smile. Almost as soon as she did so I felt Beta and her daughter close themselves up. It was very odd to me, having witnessed Beta welcome many other women into her shop with friendly "Hello, how's the family?s". This girl, however, was not welcome. In their hesitance to even talk to her, I began a conversation. It soon became apparent that the girl, *Ornela, simply had a mind that worked a little differently than the average Joe of our neighborhood, unable to follow the "social rules" that make a person "normal" in their society.

I could feel Ornela's embarrassment when I asked her where she went to school and she didn't give me a direct answer - but then the younger girl present in the conversation said, "She doesn't go to school. One year yes, the next year no." Then I felt totally embarrassed as Beta tried to tell me in the little English she knew, "You don't need to talk to her. She's crazy," and her daughter affirmed her mother's statement.

The worst of it was that I could tell Ornela knew how they were speaking about her. My blood boiled.

How can you treat someone like this, calling her crazy to her face? How can these people with whom I have had many wonderful conversations have such prejudice against a darling young woman with a learning disability?

Ignorance.

I clicked the Facebook invite from a boy in the neighborhood, whose sisters are close friends of mine. When I saw the sexually explicit cover photo gracing his page, I stopped a moment and thought, "What am I going to say if he asks me whether I received his invite and I have to tell him it is offensive?" I deleted the request.

Sure enough, on my next visit, I sat talking with him and one of his sisters, and he asked me, "So you do have a Facebook?" He was indirectly trying to find out whether I had received his invite.

"Here we go," I thought. "I feel incredibly awkward having to tell the brother of my Albanian sisters that I couldn't accept his Facebook invite." 

"Oh yeah, I saw you sent me an invite. But I'm sorry… I couldn't accept it, not when you put up photos like that on your page." He denied it at first because he had changed the more explicit photo to one a little less so, but still with overtones of sensuality. I felt that surge of fire coming up from within. "No, you know which one I am talking about." He couldn't continue. Then when his sister entered the argument she added, "Those women are somebody's daughters, somebody's sisters." He got quiet.

Ignorance.

A girl I know asked if I could help her with an assignment in English. She had to write a couple paragraphs on "something you believe should be changed in the world," and she chose the abuse of women. It soon became apparent that the assignment was way too far over her head to complete in English and she expected me to write it for her. My blood boiled once again, because it is totally normal for students to complete assignments by copying friends' work or taking it from the Internet, rather than do the work themselves. In general students are not taught to think critically. However, it was impossible for her to complete the assignment in English. So when she showed me a website with information in Albanian and asked me to translate it for the paper, I asked her, "How do you see this problem in Albania? How might it be solved? What could you do to help solve it?" My blood kept boiling as I realized that there isn't much I can do to alleviate this serious social problem, but that people like her need to decide to take action for change to happen.

Prejudice. Uncensored media that glorifies the objectification of women. Complacency. Blind acceptance of a flawed status quo. Injustice. Ignorance. Godlessness.

At least in America people have heard about God's law and have been told about righteousness. Here there is no knowledge of God's law. No standard on which to base righteousness and justice. God did not create the world to be like this. Each encounter revealed an evil that the devil has let loose in this society, and there is nothing that brings out my "righteous indignation" quite like injustice coming from corporate and individual sin. People, families, and communities need to be transformed from darkness (ignorance of truth) and taken into light (knowledge of the truth).

They need to know the Light.

*Names changed for privacy purposes.