Photo Essay – Girls & Women at Work

Images from CommNet Media

Around the world, some girls and women spend hours each day pounding grain, tending livestock, hauling water or firewood and preparing meals for their families. Others work full-time in demanding professions or launch businesses to make ends meet.

Missionaries who seek to serve and share the love of God with busy women must be creative. They make the most of any moments to connect: offering and receiving hospitality, arranging children’s playdates, sharing chores and cooking or running errands together. Where opportunities for women are limited, Pioneers teams may establish businesses that employ women and help them find purpose and dignity.

Reason to Reflect

  • As you look at the images below, how would you pray for these women and girls? What do you think their needs, hopes and fears might be?
  • Now think about these women following Jesus. Chances are most of them don’t know Him yet.
  • What qualities might they bring to the Church and the Kingdom of God?

A Burmese restaurant worker serves up a bowl of fish soup. She wears traditional thanaka paste on her face.
A doctor in West Africa treats a boy’s wound and changes the dressing. He cut his leg with a machete.
A teacher instructs a student at a school in Northern India. Both the teacher and the student are blind.
In Bangladesh, a young woman carries fodder for animals on top of her head. She’s walking barefoot.
In the mountains of North India, this young woman takes a break from pounding grain to look at the camera.
West African women carry bundles of firewood on their heads, children slung around their waists.
Thilashin, female novice monks, make their way through a vegetable market in Myammar seeking provisions from faithful Buddhists in their community.
A Chinese woman paints beautiful floral designs. Then, she sells her work at a local market.
What is this woman in Nepal doing? She is mixing concrete in a tub.

More About Reaching the World’s Women

Stories from the pursuit

Middle Eastern people and camels resting
Middle Eastern people and camels resting

Snapshot of the Unreached: Nomadic Peoples

Some 200 million people, about three percent of the world’s population, are nomadic—and the vast majority are unreached.

A man from the Himalayas talks about his change in faith
A man from the Himalayas talks about his change in faith

Finding Faith in a Himalayan Village

Tom was expected to follow his grandfather into the priesthood, but he follows Christ instead and uses media to share the message of salvation.

Lindsey and teen girls bake together.
Lindsey and teen girls bake together.

Video – Starting From Scratch

A young missionary from America has two passions: baking and Jesus. Watch as Lindsey figures out how to combine the two in France—one of the culinary capitals of the world.