Bold Women's Sunday
Nobel Peace Prize: Tawakkul Karman, Leymah Gbowee, & Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Photo: Harry Wad
The Women of the ELCA observe Bold Women’s Day on the first Sunday of March each year. Bold Women’s Day looks to celebrate all Lutheran women who act boldly on their faith in Jesus Christ and who live out their baptismal call of being a disciple of Christ.
I had the privilege of hearing a bold woman speak at two triennial gatherings that I attended. Leymah Gbowee, a Nobel laureate and activist, spoke at the triennial gatherings in 2011 and 2017. Leymah is from Liberia and during the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, led a women’s nonviolent peace movement that helped to bring an end to the war. In her book, Mighty Be Our Powers, Leymah gives details of life during the war.
The women around her were tired of seeing women and girls raped and boys ripped out of their mother’s arms to become soldiers. The women dressed in all white and went to a public place to protest each day. They spoke to all who would listen and took their demands to the president.
Through their work, they were able to help bring free elections to Liberia, which saw the first woman elected president of an African nation in 2005. These bold women knew that they could be killed at any time by soldiers on both sides, but they had had enough and wanted a better life for their children and themselves.
Often as women, our boldness comes out of a place of having had enough with what is going on and feeling that we must take matters into our own hands. This is where women’s organizations in the church started.
When women did not have voice or vote over congregational matters, they still wanted to live out their baptismal call to service. God called them to focus on women and children’s issues in their local communities and in the world. Now that women have voice and vote in our congregations, we cannot lose sight of how God calls us today to be bold women in our congregations with our sisters in the Women of the ELCA and around the world.
The work of bold women will not end until all of our sisters around the world have voice and vote.
Jennifer Armstrong-Schaefer
Executive Board, Women of the ELCA