World Student Christian Federation

Europe Region

40 days to End Violence Against Women

A WCC, WSCF and YWCA Lenten Study

Cries of Anguish, Stories of Hope: A Lenten study on the Worldwide Struggle to eliminate violence against women. This study features weekly videos of inspirational women around the world. There are also Bible Studies, Prayers and a place for a discussion. Join the WSCF European Regional Committee each week as journey together in this practice together, online.

The European Regional Committee has committed themselves to join together in community to discuss and reflect on this topic for the next 40 days. We will be posting our comments, reflections and answers to the weekly Bible Studies here and at our Facebook group.

Week Six: Stories from Around the World

Texts, Video and Bible Passages can be found here

Here are this weeks questions about the films:

• Which of the adverts do you find most valuable? Why?
• Which do you like least? Why?
• Do any of the films make you uncomfortable?
• How far can personal attitudes and behaviours be changed by public education campaigns? Have you ever changed a deeply held belief as a result of seeing a film advertisement?
• What attitudes need to be change in the society where you live? Would public education films
• In the Bell Bajao film, witnesses are encouraged to make personal interventions to stop domestic violence. Have you ever made such an intervention? Have you ever known abuse was happening but been unable to act?
• In ‘It’s not okay’, the definition of domestic violence ranges from rape and physical abuse to shouting at your children and behaving passively-aggressively with your family. Is it helpful to have such a wide definition or does it detract from the abuses at the extreme end of the spectrum?

Bible Study Questions

• What do you think happened to the woman after her encounter with Jesus?
• What do you make of the fact that the man who was committing adultery is not mentioned in the story?
• The Scribes and Pharisees have their moral certainty challenged. Are there times when your mind has been changed suddenly and unexpectedly? What happened?
• Have you ever been part of a “mob”? At a concert or at a rally, what emotions did you feel? How did you feel after? Did you do anything that you might not have done otherwise?
• Have you ever felt that you were of value only because you were “better” in comparison to someone else? Why was this?
• Jesus is described as ‘writing with his finger on the ground’ on two occasions during this passage. What do you make of this? What do you think he wrote?

Week Five: A Story from South Africa

Texts, Video and Bible Passages can be found here

Week Four: A Story from Uzbekistan

Texts, Video and Bible Passages can be found here

Week Three: Claiming the Right to Health and Life in a Region of Death - Colombia

Texts, Video and Bible Passages can be found here

Week Two: Fighting the Silence

Texts, Video and Bible Passages can be found here

Week One: Now We Are Fearless

Texts, Video and Bible Passages can be found here