Can you please help me help the persecuted Church and wounded women of Pakistan?
Even just $5 would provide one book for one woman.
We change the world one soul at a time.
These are pictures of the Urdu translator of my book, "The Holiness of Womanhood" speaking at different seminars for various religious denominations about my book in Pakistan. The incredible teaching of St. Edith Stein and St. Pope John Paul II on the Dignity and Vocation of Women from my book is being taught to the people (specifically women) of Pakistan regardless of religious background in the simplest ways. But getting them physical books would be incredibly transformative. PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO THIS CAUSE.
The link to my GoFundMe page is at the end of this post.
I have a new GoFundMe project having to do with providing my book, “The Holiness of Womanhood” to Persecuted Christians.
PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH TO READ AND SHARE THIS!
Can you imagine your daughter being kidnapped, raped and then forced into a marriage with an older Muslim man? It sounds horrifying, but this is the situation of women and girls in Pakistan. I have personally been contacted by several parents begging me to get them out of the country in order to save their daughters because they are afraid. Both the National Geographic and the Telegraph named Pakistan along with two other countries as the top three worst countries in the world in their treatment of women. Just googling articles on this I found these that relate horrifying first person stories of what life is like there for women.
Open Doors, an organization that helps the persecuted Church throughout the world has said that they had to withdraw their on-ground help in Pakistan because of the threat it caused to the lives of those they served. They provide very thorough information here about the plight both of Christians, as well as women in general, in Pakistan. They list the persecution of Christians as ‘Extreme’.
My translator in Pakistan has shared detailed information about how my book, “The Holiness of Womanhood,” and the Church’s teachings on the Dignity and Vocation of Woman has already healed many men and women who have come into contact with the Urdu text. And we are still working on the printed version. Unfortunately, women are treated terribly in their society –both inside and outside of the Church –and he said that by reading this book their eyes have been opened to a new way of thinking and approaching women. To synthesize the situation he explains:
• I hope our main concern of Urdu translation is to heal many women who are spiritually and physically wounded in Pakistan.
• These women belong to different fields of life. They come from urban and rural places. They are simple and many times not very educated and rich.
• I have healed myself after reading this book and wish that other men and women get healed too.
• This book gave me new vision and eyes to see my daughter, wife, mother, sister and many other women.
• Our women in Pakistan have been badly treated by society and church.
• This book will give them some hope to find Jesus.
• Our church even catholic church has not been fair to women. Women have been treated as an object. Women do not have any visible or decision-making place in church.
• So, may be this book might give us less profit but it will bring hope and new life in women.
• I know the importance of this book. This book is so insightful. Our women are going to read something that they have never thought. For this thanks to Mary.
· I am sure this book will quench the spiritual thirst of many men and women.
• Though people do not have this book in Urdu yet, Mary really has inspired our women already. I have shared her amazing life story with my people especially women (both young and aged).
Already my translator has been gathering rural, uneducated women into small groups and reading excerpts from my book to them. They are inspired. They realize their worth as daughters of God. The whole society (Muslim, Protestant, Catholic –rich, poor) is being challenged by these thoughts.
Books are very expensive for Pakistani people. Most homes can’t even afford to buy a Catholic Bible. And so I suggested that I set up a GoFundMe to see if we could raise money to purchase copies of the Urdu translation of my book (once it is printed in Lahore, Pakistan) to distribute to those who are most in need, as well as those who would have the greatest influence on society. If women knew their worth and how to connect with God, they would be healed. If priests read the Church’s teachings as laid out in this book, how could they not relate differently with women –in a new way different then their Muslim-influenced culture, instead inspired by the teachings of Pope John Paul II, St. Edith Stein, Archbishop Fulton Sheen and above all else, the women saints and Our Lady as presented in it?
The first several thousand dollars of this GoFundMe will go towards providing books for those in Pakistan. After we are able to provide a few thousand, some of the funding will go towards providing books for a few poor areas of Africa and India with the same needs. For example, in Uganda often teenage moms are abandoned and there is a couple who runs a home for these young women and their children who would love to use this book in formation. And I am already working with people to translate it into two Ugandan languages. But once the translation is completed, we will have to get printed texts to Uganda (or print them there) and distributed to the most poor and persecuted in their society. There is another girls’ school run by a good priest in Tanzania in an area dominated by Muslims and Muslim thought (which is very contrary to the dignity of women). I would love to eventually provide him with books for his school. There is another girl’s home in India who I have regular contact with that is in the same predicament. These people are poor and caring for the poorest of the poor –but through the teachings of this book, their eyes and minds could be open to a new beautiful truth about the dignity of women and this, in turn, could transform their societies.
But we will start with Pakistan.
There are 204 million people in Pakistan -4 million of which are Christian. We are unsure of the price of the books in Pakistan as of yet –most likely we will try to make them available in Urdu for around $4-5 considering the plight of the people. I hope to at least provide 2000 free books to people (at least at the beginning). Which means we need at least $10,000. Of course, I would like to do much more. After the first 2000 books are set, I will look at providing some for these pockets of homes for abandoned/abused women/girls in Africa and India. And after providing books for them, continue on with more books for Pakistan. Unless I find a donor who is set on all of their donation going towards one particular country.
In prayer, yes. But also with a donation? We seriously could change the tide of women in the Middle East with this project.
St. Thomas (the patron saint of Pakistan), St. Bernadine of Sienna, St. John of God, St. Gabriel, St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Claret, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Clare, Bl. Carlos, St. Augustine, St. Genesius, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bridget of Ireland (all patron saints of media, books and printers) –pray for us!
St. Agatha, Agnes, Dymphna, Bakhita, Alphonsa, Philomena, Miriam the little Arab, Rita, Germaine, Adelaide, Maria Goretti and women victims of abuse, pray for us!
Our Lady, Queen of Peace, St. Joseph and all of the angels and saints, pray for us!
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