MENA (MNN) — It’s no secret that in Arab societies, women are often devalued and even abused. Wives are shamed and beaten. Daughters are pulled out of school to work at home while sons get a comprehensive education.
That’s why SAT-7, a satellite television broadcast ministry to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), is infusing biblical dignity and hope in Arab women with the Gospel.
Joe Willey with SAT-7 explains, “Within families in those cultures, women truly are a possession. They may be viewed as chattel.
“Women need to understand in these cultures about the dignity that they deserve because they’re made in the image of God. So we have a new TV series that is a five-year program.”
(Photo courtesy of SAT-7)
The new SAT-7 series is called Today Not Tomorrow. The show travels around to different communities in Egypt interviewing women and girls and sharing their stories with discussion of Scripture. Their stories reflect the reality of many Arab women across the MENA region.
“The point of this program is to use Biblical understanding to show women in the Arab world that they are not less, that they are made in the image of God [and] have the same intrinsic value as men in that society,” says Willey.
“It sounds perhaps to a Western listener something that’s obvious, but it truly isn’t in all cultures. In the Middle East and North Africa, that is an area where the rights of women to be treated as a human being are really not being addressed.”
Pray for Arab women watching SAT-7 to find their worth in Jesus Christ.
“We often say at SAT-7 that prayer is really what we need most, especially in an area of the world where 97% of people are not Christians. They do not have a biblical worldview,” says Willey. “So the prayers that go before the broadcast, the prayers that go before the social media programs, the prayers that go before the Church — the underground Church in some of these countries — they really need to be there as a foundation. Then the rest of the work is done because of those prayers.”
Learn more about SAT-7’s ministry at sat7usa.org.
Header photo courtesy of SAT-7.
