I should like to share with you a story that illustrates the need for women to recognize themselves as people also created by God with a purpose in life of necessity in partnership with others, but not dependent on or existing through someone else, as has been the lot of women in Latin America.

Who are you?

A woman was on her deathbed. Suddenly, she felt carried up to heaven and set before a hearing.

A voice asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm the mayor's wife," she replied.

"I didn't ask who you were married to but who are you?"
"I have four children."

"I didn't ask how many children you had but who are you?"
"I'm a schoolteacher."

"I didn't ask for your profession but who are you?"

And so it went on. No matter what she answered, it never seemed a satisfactory response to the question, "Who are you?"

"I'm a Christian."
"I didn't enquire after your religion. I asked who are you?"

"I am somebody who went to church every day and helped the poor and needy."
"I didn't ask what you did: but who are you?"

Clearly, she didn't pass the test because she was sent back to earth. When she recovered from her illness, she resolved to find out who she was. And everything was different.

I am leaving this story with you because I want us to think about it as we reflect on what is happening in our own churches as we gradually develop the issues concerning partnership in God's mission.

I should like to thank Dr Nyambura J Njoroge and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches for this opportunity of sharing with you the subject of Partnership in God's Mission whereby we can seek out God's plans starting from Creation (Gen 1.26-27) through our faith in Christ, the points of departure for thinking about today's mission in Latin America.

Although on our Latin American continent it cannot be said that there is a general lack of openness to women's participation in ministry, it must be recognized that in relevant and significant areas such as decision-making and policy-directing there are still strong barriers. Perhaps the reason may be that although women are in the majority in almost all the churches, the principal posts are still not in their hands and therefore they cannot make a genuine contribution that would have a woman's stamp on it.

There are some Latin American countries where there is no opposition to ordaining women but our women, once ordained, are excluded and not present in the decision-making areas. And if they manage to hold important posts, their outlook must continue to be male-based, androgenous. If they present a gender-based perspective, the barriers go up and they adjust to them.

No one, however, can deny the quiet and diligent work done by women in the church. I think that for centuries we have been used to doing everything without asking for anything: to meet the church's needs on various planes, serving, always serving. It could be said that women in Latin America have always been taught by women to conform to the cultural pattern of service, giving, making themselves available for others: husband, father, children, the rest. For a long time grandmothers and mothers dinned into their daughters, "Learn to cook, wash and iron so that your husband won't leave you." As if one's very survival depended on someone else.

In Colombia, women's struggle to attain recognition as citizens, workers, with a right to higher education goes back years. For example, in the 1920s, María Cano fought for the eight-hour working day for men and women; in the 1930s, women achieved access to culture and information, and only at the end of the 1950s were they given the right to vote.

Today women have gained other positions: they receive an education, they work, they present themselves as individuals and the odd one can say that she has achieved recognition. However, their task is heavier than before since they continue to play their traditional roles and also function as productive members of the domestic economy.

In the churches, ministers' wives are also ministers and are witnesses to this: if there is a church social or a church meeting, they look after the children. But if the meeting is for them, somebody has to be found to look after the children because the men can't do that. What's more, given their duty to the children, very few women can represent their churches in consultations such as this one.

We could say, then, that culturally, women have a limited role in our Latin American society despite the positions gained.

Let us turn once more to the Bible, Gen 1.26-27. How has this been interpreted? Without a doubt, to justify the subjugation of women in considering them subordinate beings, submissive, servile and the second sex. I think that if we look at our own lives, we will see that situation mirrored in them. The most important thing is to acknowledge this, feel dissatisfied about it and thereby begin to make the changes necessary in people and society. Without discontent, there is no move to change.

A few weeks ago I was in a Presbyterian church in the United States. There, they usually wear a gown and stole to deliver the sermon. The associate pastor was a Puerto Rican woman and she asked me: "Do you want to borrow my gown? We wear them for preaching, here". With my Latin American mind set I answered: "Well, I'm not an ordained minister; I don't know if I should." To which she replied: "Here it is. We don't make such distinctions. You're a minister preaching the Word." At the end of the service, she asked me to pronounce the blessing. The male pastor did not object. As far as they were concerned, what mattered was the ministry I was carrying out, not its institutionalization. The fact is that I affirmed silently within me that I am a minister because God gives us the vocation, the calling, and how wonderful it is to have our work recognized and not necessarily because of a degree from an ecclesiastical institution. If only all the Reformed churches could recognize the pastoral ministry of women without requirements such as dissertations or exams when women have demonstrated their active service and pastoral duties within the church community.

Florence Thomas, formerly a sociologist in the Universidad Nacional de Bogotá, Colombia, said in a talk on non-sexist communication, "We have to find new ways of relating to others, men with women and women with women, new ways of talking to each other and administering the world, perhaps by feminizing it". To my way of thinking this is a good indication of women's readiness to instigate relationships of sharing-coexistence, selfless service, life-promoting relationships, and in that task men have to be included by dismantling the old thinking that they were the people that had the power and the last word in any decisions to be taken-an inappropriate idea they have always had.

But let us go back to Gen 1.26-27. Looking at this text, I should like to share it with you from the viewpoint of the hermeneutical vision of a theologian, Phyllis Trible, whose method of approach is rhetorical or literary criticism, where form and content are inseparable.

Phyllis Trible presents the creation in a liturgical context where God the Creator gives form to the universe and then adds living beings to it on the sixth day. She talks about the creation of humankind with some special characteristics: in the image of God, with dominion over all the other beings created and with the ability to procreate. But she points out that in calling them male and female the text does not refer to sexuality but to the fact of being in the image of God (Gen 1.27-28). So men and women are distinctive in the Creation.

The author, using the Revised Version of the Bible, says that in Hebrew, the expression ha adam refers to humankind, and she discounts an androgenous interpretation of it. Rather she concludes that "humankind" implies the existence of two creatures. In Gen 5.1-2 there is more information to confirm that. She points out that men and women structurally match the image of God. There is a semantic relationship in the parallel statement: "and God created humankind in his image: male and female he created them".

What conclusion can be drawn from all this? Phyllis Trible says:

1.Men and women are not opposing sexes but harmonious sexes. Humankind refers to men and women as a unity in difference.

2.Similarly, sexual differentiation does not mean hierarchy, but equality. In being created at one and the same time, men and women are not one superior and the other inferior, neither has power over the other but both have equal power. The following verses (Gen 1.28-29) set out the dominion of both sexes over the earth and neither is given power over the other.

Given the things that are not said in the references to humankind, Genesis 1.27 has been construed in various ways and of course none of those in women's favour.

You may ask: and what happens with the second story of Genesis? Phyllis Trible shows from her feminist point of view that men and women were created at the same time not one after the other. So, when the earth creature describes his wife as "bone of my bones" he is talking about unity, partnership, mutual support and equality. She explains that what God took from Adam was not a woman but a rib. The new being is called "woman" in a play on words that does not refer to the creative process but simply indicates the similarity between men and women, not the subordination of one to the other. What is more, the words "taken from" do not indicate subordination but to the contrary refer to the power given the woman over the medium from which she was drawn, as when Adam is told that he has lordship over all the earth and all the other creatures. In strict analogy with the creation of woman, "taken from" would mean that she is superior to man but this would be a poor interpretation of the text since the words "bone of my bones" show that that idea is inappropriate. Thus, the relationship in the couple is one of mutual support and equality. Both are responsible for the stewardship of nature, for maintaining harmony and promoting life for the benefit of all creation.

Taking this standpoint, we can reaffirm that God's purpose from the beginning was to create life and give men and women independence so that they could both be free to choose. This independence does not consist in each invalidating the other, in being better than other, in using the other as a means or instrument. Independence consists in a process of co-existence, equal relations, egalitarian bargaining where neither is higher or lower than the other.

In the book of Genesis we find the story of several women who, although highlighted only from a feminist reading of the Bible, have prompted us to salvage this divine purpose of creation: partnership between men and women in the future of creation as a whole where the work to be done is to demonstrate harmony, life, abundance, respect and responsibility for each other.

In a word: partnership for a more human world beginning with our own community.

Ana Roy, a Brazilian nun, takes the experience of biblical matriarchs such as Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, in a framework of openness to others and points out that the paths they trod were such that their lives were an offering "so that hope could shine through and the promise be fulfilled for which even today every woman is responsible: the universal solidarity of a community people".

In our Latin American context, beset with despair, violence and death, today there are many women who are promoting hope in their daily struggle for survival, but they need men's partnership and the partnership of other women in order to make justice and equality a reality.

They seek to be part of communities in order to attain their goals and it is precisely through community spaces that the community can be transformed.

This equality between men and women is being confirmed in the ministry of Christ, in the creation afresh of the new men and new women wherein the divine purpose of Genesis is attested.

In the New Testament, taking up again the praxis of Jesus Christ, our partnership begins with the Master as role model in generating self-esteem in women, listening to what they have to say, learning from their contribution, giving them space to express themselves and achieve their dreams.

Jesus disregarded any cultural law that hampered women's presence or participation. He always received them as beings created in the image of God the Father. For example, look at the way he dealt with different women: the Greek woman, the woman who suffered from haemorrhages, the Samaritan woman, the adulterous woman, the woman who turned up uninvited in Simon the Pharisee's house, the women at the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Women, too, were disciples of the Lord (Lk 10.38-42; Mk 15.40-41; Mt 27.55-56; 28.1-8) thus overcoming the fact that, according to Jewish custom, they had no access to education.

If we look at the most important events in the life of Jesus (1 Cor 15.3-4) it is clear that women were the ones that bore witness to birth, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the last bit of news being the most significant (Acts 1.22) and women were the best placed to announce it.

However, there's an old joke that has gone the rounds in some Christian circles to the effect that Jesus gave women the news of the resurrection because, being gossips, they would get the word out quicker-thus invalidating at a stroke all the courage of their comradeship and the risks run in staying close as any brother to the Master.

From a semiological point of view, Luz Marina Torres says: "We can regard jokes as a mechanism for allowing the unconscious and preconscious mind to release archetypes, symbolic fantasies and chains that underlie the cognitive and ideational processes of members of a given society".

In other words, this is the element that shows us in a free form the living experience of a culture, the relationships and daily manifestations of a society, what is really thought and known. Unfortunately, here it indicates that even in our church circles women's personality has been caricatured.

In Jesus' footsteps, women were comrades and service providers, not servile handmaids.

Although some of what was said by the apostle Paul has been taken as a basis for barring women's progress, it would be worthwhile today, now that we have more information to enable us to understand the Scriptures, really to consider what Paul meant in his context, how to reconcile some of the recommendations with the grand truths that talk of community, working together in the sort of closeness expected in families, equality between men and women, to carry out God's work.

The passage chosen-1 Cor 12-illustrates the thoughts Paul had about partnership, unity in the midst of diversity, communion with the Lord, where the entire community stands together (image of the body and the members) to carry things through. Once again, community spaces are required for clear action.

The apostle overturns any obstacle to the feeling of solidarity in the community when in Gal 3.28 he says that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female but all are one in Christ Jesus.

Perhaps we could now "jump cut" to the challenge of the world of today, our communities, men and women partners in God's mission. Since partnership happens in a context, not in a vacuum, we must be clear about the context in Latin America.

Beyond question, globalization and economic development have given rise, in our Latin American countries, to a marked increase in poverty, the violent political displacement of rural families, the privatization of functions previously carried out by the state and of public services, the exclusion of thousands from the economic development process, military repression and vigilantism, increased budgets for the arms race, the violation of human rights, corruption in various government departments, "social cleansing", foreign investment that favours those least in need-conditions such that we are required as the church to make ourselves felt where we already exist and to establish a base among the communities where we are not yet represented in order to transform them and in the midst of all this to propose alternative approaches to life.

In Colombia, there is an increasingly pressing need for acts of solidarity: women and orphaned children of Urabá, an area where our Presbyterian Church has also been affected, have offered a major challenge and called for cooperation and solidarity. Such solidarity involves risking one's own life because the force of violence is tremendous. And solidarity can vanish when it is a matter of survival. What is more, it can become a death factor. None the less, if solidarity is built with everyone's efforts, as a community, it may be a tool for complaint that leads to hope.

On 25 November the International Day against Violence and the Exploitation of Women will be celebrated in Urabá, Colombia, an area of conflict where death daily goes the rounds. But the women decided to make themselves felt precisely in that place.

Given the violent picture of Latin America, worshipping the current idol or false god of the market place as the whole story of the economy, we must also urgently build a market that includes solidarity to offset an international system that is straying far from God's purposes of harmony and peace for the world.

Certainly you will have learnt that one of our students in the Urabá Seminary was riddled with bullets when travelling from his town to the Training Centre on 18 November 1996. When we told brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church (USA) they were shocked rigid and said: "It is so hard for us to understand what you are living with; we are speechless, gutted."

The gospel talks about identifying with the people forced to the fringes of society as did Christ. Here lies the challenge for our work today in Latin America: to embrace these needs as our own, demand justice that is lacking not only for our brothers and sisters and peoples in Urabá but also for all the silenced and impoverished peoples of our Latin American continent.

At world level as well we need to extend the network of solidarity with those oppressed by violence and social injustice. Solidarity must be a chain which allows links to be added so that as many as feel prompted to work for the harmony of creation can join in.

I have not given a summary of what mission in Latin America has been but we all know that the gospel came first in the guise of conquest and therefore its keynotes were conformity and submission; later, in a second wave, it was presented with the seal of a culture that promoted individualism.

Today, many social actors in Latin America are building vital communities without talking about faith and this, too, is a challenge for us Christians.

Then again many brothers and sisters are beginning ecumenical work in solidarity with those excluded from society. It would seem that social crises intelligently prompt human beings to seek answers, to offer alternatives to anything or everything signifying death, with the contribution of all those who believe in the life plan of God for humankind.

As Reformed churches that gave life to the gospel truth in the past, it is up to us today to be familiar with every aspect of current reality so as to foster change and transformation not only in individuals but in communities. Mission points to the liberation of peoples from oppression, it signposts for us men and women the path of partnership, courage, wisdom and strength and places us in opposition to any unjust action that limits the reality of the kingdom.

Men and women in Latin America, Reformed Christians throughout the world, we must build a network of solidarity in the face of a society cleft and riven with signs of death, in answer to the missionary call of God to recreate the world, to sow the seeds of hope in the midst of despair, to strive, as someone said stubbornly for only "two options: life or resurrection".

Ms Alba Luz Arrieta de Illidge is Professor of Christian Education and president of the Presbyterian and Reformed Theological Seminary of Greater Colombia, Barranquilla, Colombia.

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