IDEAS THAT WORK
January 1, 1993
Widows' Might
In her high-pitched, staccato voice, Martha said, "Pastor, I did something that makes me very scared. I drove through the park and hit one of those birds. Someone told me I would be fined $1,000 for killing a bird, so I hid it."
"Where did you hide the bird?"
"I picked the feathers off and cooked it for a long time," she said, grinning. "I ate it for a week. It was two times bigger than a duck."
Martha is a Vietnamese refugee who, with her two-year-old son, had been resettled in our town. She became a Christian and joined our church. Our conversation about the bird led to the discovery that her menu often consisted of road-kill: rabbits, ducks, even a deer that she hauled home, butchered and put into her small freezer. She was attempting to live on wages of $2.25 an hour as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant.
Martha is also a widow, but because she was new to our church and because of the language barrier, our church members did not fully understand she was destitute. But God used her plight to raise our consciousness of other widows in need.
Statistics say 85 percent of the married women in the United States can expect to be widowed in their lifetime for an average of 18 years. As government programs are cut and baby-boomers approach the median age of widowhood (56 years old), the contemporary church must renew its commitment to widows.
Ministry to widows goes beyond grief management to provide assistance and resources long after the hearse drives away.
Like a low-grade headache, loneliness pounds away at a widow. Some say they hear their husbands' voices. Others continue to set a plate for him at the dinner table.
"When the doctor phoned to say Sam had died," said one woman, "I felt as though I had been given a ...
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