Remember her tonight

My former language teacher called the other night to tell me she was leaving for Dubai the next morning. She can’t find any work here and it is fairly common for women from here to move to the Middle East and work as houseworkers and send the money back for their families. It is also often fairly common for the husband to send the wife to the Middle East for work and she may have no say in it whatsoever.  Unfortunately, for a woman to leave here and go to the Middle East is usually not a very positive situation. Even in my short time here, I have heard horror stories of ladies going to the Middle East to become houseworkers and ending up in a nightmarish situation. Often they  are treated as nothing but slaves, sometimes their passports are taken away from them by their employers so they have no way to leave, and in worst case scenarios they result to prostitution because they end up with no other way to earn money. For my language teacher, even in the best scenario, she leaves behind her three year old daughter and her husband for 2-3 years. Many would question the celibacy of a husband here if his wife is gone for 2-3 years….especially when he is most likely the one who sent her away to begin with. At any point while she is gone, if he wants a second wife he can take one.

Needless to say, hearing that my teacher was going to Dubai for work was not good news to my ears. I could tell she had been crying although she didn’t cry on the phone with me. She just asked me to pray. Which is now what I am asking you to do. Pray that she will end up in a good house with a good job and people that treat her fairly. Pray that in her loneliest moments she would sense the Father’s presence and know that He is the God who sees. Pray that she would somehow, someway find the Son while she is there. She is a very devout follower of Isl@m….pray that while she is there her loneliness would drive her to the only One who can truly save her. Pray for her family while she is gone, for her daughter who won’t see her mother for 2+ years. Pray that she would come back safely to her family.