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Cry out a dark window

Dorothy Siebert

Ken Loewen

Should I consent to meet with Elena? It wasn’t that I hadn’t met with homosexuals before. They had been in my home; we’d hugged and prayed and argued. But I was still prejudiced against them. Handing them a coffee cup, I wondered about AIDS and about how communicable it was for me or my kids. Living in Colombia, where the culture calls for both women and men friends to hug and touch cheeks in a mock kiss, my anxiety alarm jangled inside me each time I greeted one of them.

Now Elena sought my counsel. I already knew her slightly. She was a lesbian but, as a new Christian, hoping to change her lifestyle. Saying yes meant that I would be shut up with Elena in my office several hours a week. Did I want to invest that much time with her? Would it be worth it?

She rang my doorbell on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. sharp – alarmingly punctual for a Colombian! I swung open the wide wooden door, then stepped out into the night air to unlock the tall outer gate. Greeting in Colombian style, I felt uncomfortable hugging the body of a lesbian. What went through her mind when she hugged me? I wondered. What if she desired me?

But instead of the stiffness I had expected at the first session, we were soon laughing together. She told me about her 10-year-old daughter, about her small sewing business and about how she got her old suede shoes to look new by blackening them in candle smoke. I realized I was enjoying our conversation. I had let down my guard. Why? There was no facade. This is who I am, she seemed to say. I have nothing to hide. She had a bounce in her step, and I loved her transparency and zest for life.

The first weeks were tough, though, and the first months tougher. Not that we argued. We didn’t even look at the Scriptures about homosexuality. That was not the issue. What was killing her was her determination to break off her relationship with a woman she was in love with. “I intend to do whatever God tells me to do”! For her, that meant a radical relational pattern and lifestyle change. She said, “Even before I had ever seen a Bible or heard about God, I felt so ugly inside – I knew my life wasn’t right, even though no one told me so.”

But ripping herself away from a source of security meant facing the black void of aloneness. Who will love me now? She slipped into panic and depression. What meaning will there be for my life? Suicide tempted. We prayed hard and long on our knees. We fasted together. I assigned her Scriptures and books to read, mind and spirit exercises, and practical daily “homework” charts to fill in to get her mind moving in a new direction. I assured her of my love and care for her, and hoped she would begin to feel the love of God as well.

One week, I’d be impressed with her persistence and single-mindedness. Another week, she’d deceive me and then later confess she’d slipped into old patterns. I invited her to call me anytime, night or day. Several times, a late call from her was a cry for help, begging for some reason not to end it all that night.

One night, drained from interacting with the many who like Elena were trapped in lives they ached to escape from, I sat alone in the dark, staring out of the window at the lights on the distant blue mountains. Stranded thousands of miles and many years away from things familiar, my heart reached for home. Weary of caring for others, I felt Elena’s questions slink into the room and rear their heads in my own mind. Who really loves me? What meaning has my life?

I began to feel a share of Elena’s desperate heartache. Abandoned by her father and raised by an abusive mother, she stumbled into a dark and lonely adolescence with a child’s heart in search of love. In her world peopled by other hurt ones, one relationship after another was flung up to feed the yawning black hole of the heart – sometimes guys, sometimes girls. It was logical. In fact, it was necessary to survival – if there was no love, there could be no life. But when and where was real love? In her world, no one seemed to know. Stranded thousands of miles from the answer, her relationships temporarily alleviated the pain of a heart crying out a dark window toward the distant blue mountains.

I had often told her that if she relied on God, He would care for her. So she tested God’s love.

“I need a good girl friend,” she announced, “and not just any kind, as you know – someone I won’t be tempted by but who will accept me even when she finds out about my problems.” We prayed fervently for a friend. Within a few months, a strong, stable Christian woman “clicked” with Elena, and she slowly began to have someone to have coffee with, someone to talk with. We praised the Lord!

“I need a good job,” was the next request. “Otherwise, I can’t get out of this bad living situation. I’m dependent on this guy for a roof over my head, and so I sleep with him, too.” After a few months of solid prayer, Elena began a new job. Soon she rented a tiny one-bedroom apartment and moved in as a single mom with her daughter. We were so amazed at God’s speedy answers! Very soon her neighbours became Christians and started attending church with her.

More than a year after we had begun meeting regularly, she arrived one day with a large canvas shoulder bag. (By now, I had “graduated” her to meeting every other week.) She sighed, “I have something more to show you that I haven’t told you about.” Out of the bag she pulled one book after another, making a heap on the floor. Some titles related to black magic, others to homosexual practices, others to the practice of clairvoyance. “These books helped me to manage my life before, and I was keeping them just in case I’d need them again. But now I’m convinced that God will take care of me.”

We built a fire in the back courtyard. She tore the books apart and fed them to the flames. Then we thought: Why waste a good fire? We celebrated with hotdogs and marshmallows!

Later, as I hugged her goodnight, I smiled, thinking it had been a long time since my anxiety detector had gone off during a Colombian greeting. She turned to go, then came back and gripped my hand, “You realize, of course, that I face a lifelong struggle against lesbianism. I will continue to need encouragement.”

“I’m your sister,” I said, “and I need your encouragement, too.”

Years later, Elena continues to be a faithful church member, using her gifts to minister to others.

Dorothy Siebert and her husband Harold worked as MBMSI missionaries for nine years in Colombia, working in evangelism and church planting. They now live in Winnipeg. Names and details in this article have been changed to protect Elena’s identity.

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Last modified November 23, 1999.

© 1999 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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