During InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Urbana 2018, Mission Network News had the chance to sit down with the three authors of Hermanas: Deepening Our Identity and Growing Our Influence. The authors, Natalia Kohn Rivera, Noemi Vega Quiñones, and Kristy Garza Robinson, have carefully crafted words of empowerment for Latina women.
Hermanas
Rivera notes there are few books available for Latina women with a theological bent for resourcing and encouraging them so as to provide Biblical mentorship. Their book, Hermanas, aims to change this.
“We wanted to help resource, empower, encourage, and just provide mentorship to Latina women. Provide mentorship with ancient women in the Bible and then current, modern mentorship, and help bridge the gap for women; young and old,” Rivera says.
Hermanas looks at stories of women like Lydia, who partnered with Paul. Rivera says men and women were created to partner together, but sin has instead created distance.
“Paul ends up going on from Philippi, and planted other churches, leaving Lydia as one of the leaders. Commentaries say over and over again Philippi was his favorite church. There’s a connection there with leadership. There’s a connection that he entrusted women, and knew that Jesus did too.”
Women in the Bible
Hermanas also explores the stories of Ruth, Esther, Rahab, Deborah, and many more through the Latina cultural lens. But its very existence tugs at the conversation about inclusion in the Church, particularly the inclusion of Latina women. Author Quiñones says:
“Our basic assumption is that the Holy Spirit can empower anyone who is willing to say yes, and that is the goal of this book as well. If you feel called by Jesus to say something, do something, start something, pray for something—here are these 12 beautiful examples of women in the Bible that did so, and will you do likewise?”
However, Rivera says these stories are not limited to the 12 women Quiñones, Robinson, and Rivera focus their attention on. There are dozens more women in the Bible whose stories they have yet to explore and detail on the written page.
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SOURCE: Mission Network News, Bethann Flynn
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