On Tuesday morning April 30,2002, Kassi Benedict, Jean Bormett, Carol Bracewell, Fannie Hicklin, Sue Jones, Jeanne Marshall, Mary Myers, and Diana Shaw departed on their journey to Chiapas, where they were based in San Cristobal de las Casas through Thursday May 9. Delle McCormick, UCC missionary in Chiapas, lead the group in visits with a variety of women's groups, including:
Carol Bracewell, Sue Jones and Jeanne Marshall stayed a few extra days to visit with the staff of our sister parish in Las Margaritas. They visited the communities of La Esperanza and San Pedro el Soch to see the progress of some of the past First Congregational projects with our sisters and brothers there. They returned to Madison on May 13.
By Jeanne Marshall
On my way home from church on a cold Wisconsin Sunday afternoon in January 1996, I decided to stop at a new video store. Not having a title in mind, I started at the A's and read jacket covers until I reached "Beyond Rangoon" nestled in the middle of the B's. I was attracted by the story of a young American doctor struggling to put her life back together after great tragedy and her trip to the far away country of Burma. Later as I watched the movie, I was fascinated by a short section portraying a single Burmese woman leader who sent her followers away to safety and then faced gun-toting soldiers without fear until they withdrew. The rest of the film told of the experiences of the young American doctor as she ventured into the hills of Burma with the freedom fighters and helped mend their wounds and her own at the same time. At the time, I didn't know anything about the recent history of Burma and the struggles toward independence.
A few weeks later several women from First Congregational United Church of Christ in Madison met to plan our annual women's retreat. We decided on a theme of Wind, Water and Fire. During preparation of our discussion about fire, we talked about the "fire in the belly" that results in activism. While searching through my bedroom for articles about women activists, I came across the January/February 1996 issue of Ms. Magazine which contained the stories of the ten women of the year 1995. One of these women was Aung San Suu Kyi. I recognized that here in real life was the Burmese woman whom I had seen portrayed weeks earlier in the video. I was embarrassed to learn that Aung San Suu Kyi had been awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and I didn't know anything about her except what I read in the article. At the retreat I talked with Julia Weaver about the possibility of her starting a community peace weaving for Burma. I knew that Julia had facilitated several other peace weavings for place in the world in turmoil. We talked about Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for democracy in Burma. We talked about creating a graphic of the peace weaving when it was completed.
Having read an article about "The Free Burma Coalition" home page on the World Wide Web of the Internet, I went looking for more current information about Aung San Suu Kyi and the democracy movement. I downloaded and printed off several colored images as well as some news articles which I gave to Julia. She was looking for information that would explain what was happening in Burma, so that she could use it to explain why we were doing the community peace weaving for Burma. As the summer started, Julia strung the warp for the Burma weaving and began taking it to the Library Mall. On the mall, Julia shared Aung San Suu Kyi's story with people who volunteered to help with the weaving. Over the length of the summer, Julia carried the weaving with her on a trip to the state of Washington. Along the way family and friends helped with the weaving and learned about the struggle for democracy in Burma. At Holden Village, a retreat center in Washington, the weaving attracted a woman who had been married to a Burmese man. She was excited to have the opportunity to help with the weaving and even included some fringe from her son's Karin vest. During the summer I read Aung San Suu Kyi's book, Freedom from Fear and shared this information with many of my acquaintances and co-workers.
After returning to Madison, Julia took the almost completed weaving back to Library Mall where she met Zar Ni, an organizer of the Free Burma Coalition. They agreed that Julia would bring the weaving back for the Free Burma fast on October 8 and 9. When the first day of the fast arrived, Julia had finished the weaving. It was displayed at the mall throughout the fast. Meanwhile Julia had been working on a water color image of Aung San Suu Kyi which we planned to photograph with the completed weaving. In November Julia contacted her friend, Ruth Haas, who photographed the weaving for us so that we could share it with you on the Web.
Recently we shared dinner with Zar Ni and presented the weaving so that he could carry it to the Conference on Burma at the American University. We hope that Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, Michael Aris, will be able to get the weaving to Suu Kyi in the future.
Now almost a year later, we will include Aung San Suu Kyi's name in First Congregational's Women's Sunday service about women and healing. In April we will be introducing the young women in our Senior High Sunday school class to Aung San Suu Kyi. We hope to teach our youth group the song about Aung San Suu Kyi written by Wrightson Tongue and also show the movie, "Beyond Rangoon".