They put the WHOA in WOmen I: Pastor G.

My time in Sichuan was guided by several inspirational women. First, I went to Mianzhu, near Deyang. Mianzhu is close to the areas hit hardest by the earthquake (Hanwang and a ways away, Beichuan). While volunteers, non-profits, and aid agencies flocked to the earthquake site in 2008, I have seen how churches have remained the committed, long-term support systems for these destroyed (and rebuilt/transformed) communities.

Pastor G. is really awesome.

Here she is, eating dumplings

She used to work on the radio, doing news broadcasts. But felt called to be a Pastor after her church community kept asking her to do it. An incredibly humble woman, she commutes each week between a bigger city that her daughter and husband live (so that she can go to school) to the church. She roughs it out in the church during week to cut costs. If you've ever been in a Sichuan winter, it is COLD. While Sichuan is further south than Beijing and is technically warmer, there is no centralized heating. And it can get mad humid so the cold just, as many Sichuanese told me, "sits in your bones." So basically, inside and outside are equally cold/warm. But in just talking to her, I can see she receives so much joy in her work. Anyone that stops by the church, she genuinely engages. She goes out of her way to pick up and drop off people since the church can be a long distance for folks in more rural areas. And the best part of it is how unassuming she is. With curled hair and glittered-boots, Pastor G. has a very innocent charm about her but through the earthquake, she's seen some crazy, hard times. And before, during, and after the quake, she's still here. She's still invested, she's committed. She's part of the community.

Pastor G. also showed me a lot of the state of community leadership in China. Especially in the rural areas of China (like Sichuan), male leadership is lacking. So women, in all their glitter boots glory, step up and make it happen. Back in the US, there is the ongoing Church debate whether or not women should be in church leadership. Women might become too aggressive then, as the argument goes. But here, I see a balance of strength and grace. There's a maternal aspect to how Pastor G. nurtures and cares for her community. She's no softie though--she shows her pastoral chops in her resilience and strength in how she mobilized the rebuilding of her church and weathering all the stuff that has been thrown her way since.