Marisol Valles Garcia is a 20-year-old mother of one child. In November of 2010, she became the police chief of Praxedis G. Geurrero, a small town near Ciudad Juarez which is Mexico’s most violent city. Marisol is a criminology student who says she loves the town of Guerrero where she’s lived for ten years. She was offered the chief’s job a year after her predecessor was murdered. This quiet farming community has turned into a “lawless no man’s land” into which, it appears, no man is willing to step.
Two rival gangs, Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels, battle for control of a drug trafficking route along the Texas border. Marisol, described as tiny but energetic, finds herself in the midst of this war. She says she plans to hire more women, but “will leave most of the decisions about weapons and tactics to the town mayor, Jose Luis Guerrero.” Marisol has two body guards, but chooses not to carry a gun of her own.
About the same time Marisol took the job of police chief in her Mexican border town, another woman “top cop” was murdered. The CNN report on her death read, “One of a small number of women who have filled a void by becoming police chiefs in violence-torn Mexico was gunned down” in November 2010. Hermila Garcia, 38, was not a mother. She was a lawyer and willing to serve the people of Meoqui. “Was she courageous or foolhardy?” asked CNN.
Several reports on these two women read the same. The situation in the Juarez Valley along the Mexico and U.S. border has become so desperate that women are filling the void.
I am reminded of Deborah. She was a prophetess and judge filling a void during a desperate time in Israel’s history. She sent for Barak, the son of Abinoam, and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor . . . and I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?” But, Barak replied, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” (Judges 4:4-16)
Deborah said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Deborah went with Barak, but only as far as Mount Tabor. She did not go down into battle. She fulfilled her role by encouraging Barak and his troops with the words and promises of God. The woman into whose hand the enemy general, Sisera, was “delivered” was Jael. When Sisera was being pursued by the Israelite army, he fled to the tent of Jael. Jael, the wife of Heber, killed the enemy general not with a sword or military weapon, but with a tent peg which was a common household item. (Judges 4:17-22).
Marisol is a mother living in the midst of a Mexican drug corridor. In a desperate situation, with no men stepping forward, Marisol is filling a void. In doing that, she is a target for enemy fire. No biological children of Deborah are mentioned in the passages from Judges. However, in a desperate situation with no men stepping forward, Deborah filled a void. In filling that void, she did not position herself as a target for enemy fire but, instead, played a motherly role by encouraging and strengthening her people.
The question posed by Marisol and Deborah is this: When the enemy threatens a family or nation, a woman can step up to face him, but should she?
A long time ago, life in another quiet farming community was threatened. Eve was tempted to engage the enemy. Adam did nothing. God’s order for His beloved creation was ignored. What were the consequences?
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Red letters in the New Testament help me see and “hear” what Jesus spoke to the people of His day and to me.
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