Silvia Barbosa

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2004 issue of
Horizons magazine, the magazine for Presbyterian Women in the Presbyterian
Church (USA). To order resources from Horizons or Presbyterian Women, call
1-800-524-2612. The ITEBA Network appreciates the permission of Horizons to reproduce the article.

Go Daughter-Take Advantage of This Education
By June Ramage Rogers

"From the time that I was very young, my mother's faith and struggle has been a critical point of reference in my life. An illiterate woman from the drought stricken northeast of Brazil, she washed other people's clothes in order to guarantee the basics of life for her family. A special concern was the education of her children. On my first day of school, she said to me, 'Go daughter-take advantage of this education. I didn't have an opportunity to study and it is my dream that you will go all the way through university.'"

These words of Silvia Maria Silva Barbosa, a Presbyterian pastor, professor of New Testament and a graduate student at the Methodist University of São Paulo, Brazil, provide only a glimpse of Silvia's motivation to study and serve. The powerful send-off from her mother, a poor, black, woman mystic, gave Silvia a passionate desire to study and the courage and strength she needed to work in a society where she, and others like her, might be included.

The only one among her four siblings to attend the university, Silvia received a bachelor's degree in theology and full licensure in philosophy, thus fulfilling her mother's dream. In 2003, Silvia completed her studies for a master's degree in theology, with help from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Global Education and International Leadership Development Program. "My educational process," she says, "is planted in the soil of marginalized communities and . . . has become part of my personal, vocational and social history."

While at the university in São Paulo, Silvia was the pastor of a United Presbyterian congregation on the periphery of the city. She also served as the vice-moderator of the Presbytery of São Paulo, a position that allowed her to plan meetings that encouraged the development of self-esteem for women in that presbytery.

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One of my vivid memories of Silvia involves a visit to Quilombo* Zeferina, a community center in a poor, largely black area. Many of the workers at Quilombo Zeferina are interns at The Institute for Theological Education of Bahia (ITEBA)-an ecumenical seminary supported by Presbyterians. The community center was named after the famous black woman warrior Zeferina who, during the Slave Revolt of 1824, fought valiantly with a bow and arrows to save her people. On the day I remember at Quilombo Zeferina, Silvia was helping Afro-Brazilian boys and girls master the art of capoeira, a martial art originally practiced during the time of slavery. The girls matched the boys in their intent to perform well. Their eyes sparkled and their smiles were broad as they demonstrated obvious pride in this newly discovered piece of their heritage.

Why was a professor of New Testament teaching capoeira in a small community center in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil? Silvia recalls that at the time of the Second Ecumenical Latin American Meeting of Women Pastors, the words of the theologian Elsa Tamez "began to fill [her] pores, spreading to a day-to-day commitment." She eagerly sought to reflect on and apply that kind of theology in the context of the lives of black impoverished women. Following that conference, Silvia participated in ITEBA's summer courses, "From the Drought of the Northeast, Women Burst Forth With a New Theology." For Silvia, these courses provided a new means for connecting her theology with "the face, the smell and the way of being black, poor, indigenous Northeastern women."

"In one of [the courses]," she exclaimed, "in dialogue with the theologian Ivone Gebara, I had the conviction as a black woman buried in a large city that I was being challenged to do and to live this new theology." Today, Silvia and her colleagues are involved in a movement of resistance against social exclusion, and doing so in the name of Christ.

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This determination to connect faith with culture led to the initiation of Quilombo Zeferina, an ongoing resistance against existing social political practices. For the past 500 years, Brazil has been organized around and based on slave labor. Silvia reminded me that this unequal social organization still exists today, through inhuman wages and the hunger that accompanies poor salaries. (Brazil's minimum wage is around $60 per month.)

"Happily," Silvia commented with a smile, "with the victory of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (Brazil's new president), the poor people have already gained more self-esteem, which witnesses to the possibility of change and the social inclusion of the majority who are hungry for food and for justice." Researching this history and the causes of these social conditions became imperative to Silvia. She found she could not separate her academic work, her pastoral work and the context in which it was all taking place. "I spend my energies on what I believe," Sylvia adds, "For example, ITEBA."

The Institute of Theological Education of Bahia (ITEBA) is an ecumenical theological seminary that, in Silvia's view, contributes a great deal to social inclusion, especially for poor, black women on the periphery of Salvador's social system. ITEBA inspires academic reflection, action in Brazilian neighborhoods and day-to-day solidarity. The community center, Quilombo Zeferina, is just one of the places of action committed to justice for "the excluded ones." For Silvia, the dream of Zeferina-black women's leadership in a free society-is not only a part of her people's history, but of their journey of faith together today.

What are her hopes for the future? Silvia plans to begin earning a doctorate in New Testament studies. ITEBA, the little seminary she loves, will need her when the current professor of New Testament studies retires in the very near future. Her pastoral presence will continue to be needed in the neighborhoods of Salvador, where the descendants of slaves seek their place in the reign and justice of God.

North American Presbyterians can be proud of their part in nourishing Silvia's dream and preparing her to live it in a church and society that sorely need her commitment and skills. Silvia's mother died in 2002, but her mother's faith and hope live on in Silvia's strong and vibrant faith, in her goals for her continuing education and in her commitment to her people.

*Historically, a quilombo was a community of freed and runaway slaves living "in community," the way they had lived in Africa.

June Ramage Rogers is volunteer coordinator of the Ghana Project, supported by the Women's Ministries Program Area, PC(USA). Among her many roles in PW, her congregation and her presbytery, June is worship coordinator for the coordinating team of Presbyterian Women in Ohio Valley Presbytery.