Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
In February 1993, Silvia’s* husband Wuille Ruiz*, was imprisoned on trumped-up charges, specifically that he had used his home for the purpose of spreading subversive propaganda.
A twenty-year sentence
Silvia resorted to trying to talk to Wuille from the street. She realized that this could be dangerous, but she needed to hear his voice. Day after day, looking a little crazed, she ran along the street shouting his name through the air vents of the building where he was being held.
“Wuille Ruiz! Wuille Ruiz! Are you there?”Silvia shouted until Wuille finally answered. For a while it was the only contact they had.
But everywhere else she turned for help she was rebuffed or ignored. Unfortunately, this was true even at their church.
Silvia was hoping that Wuille‘s involvement as a youth leader and a member of the church board might help to clear his record. After a cool welcome into the pastor’s office, Silvia listened in disbelief to his chilly words:
“I’m sorry, Silvia, but I can‘t provide you with any records of your husband‘s church involvement.” The pastor refused to meet her eyes. “We cannot afford to put our fellowship in jeopardy. I’m sure you can understand our concerns.”
Silvia and Wuille had met while they were studying at the same university, he graduated from law school. Just before Wuille‘s arrest, Silvia had received a scholarship to finish her own master‘s degree in Community Development. But once he was locked up, her dreams of completing her degree were shattered. Their way of life seemed irretrievably lost.
It didn’t take long for the financial burden of Wuille’s absence to catch up with Silvia. For three months she lived on her husband’s final salary. Then she used her scholarship money to provide for her daughter, Esteli, and herself. Finally, she had to move in with her parents because she could no longer afford the rent payment on her own small apartment. Buying food to take to Wuille was a great strain on her small budget, but it was the last thing she wanted to give up.
In August 1994, eighteen months after his arrest, Wuille’s trial finally took place. Silvia wasn’t permitted to enter the courtroom, so she and her sister-in-law anxiously waited outside. When they saw their lawyer emerge from the building, his grim expression told them everything they needed to know.
“Twenty years, Silvia,”he said softly.
“Twenty years? You can’t be serious. For what? What did he do to deserve twenty years?”
“I’m sorry.”
The attorney shook his head in disbelief.“Believe me, their minds were made up before I ever opened my mouth.”
All of Silvia’s bottled-up emotions exploded. She wept. She raged. Most of all, she felt utterly powerless. There was absolutely nothing she could do to help her husband.
After a few moments Silvia got herself under control. Under no circumstances did she want Wuille to see her so agitated and distressed. When he walked out of the courtroom on his way to the Castro prison, she stood up straight and gave him a brave smile. The last thing she wanted to do was to add to his suffering.
Wuille’s lawyer wasn’t finished. A few months later he appealed Wuille Ruiz’s sentence. But the authorities were unbending. In December 1994 the Supreme Court ratified Wuille’s twenty-year sentence.
There was nothing more to be done except to pray, watch, and wait. By now Silvia was nearly overwhelmed with despair and anger. She was exhausted by the care of her very young child, the continuous financial strain, concern for her aging parents, endless worry about her husband. The list went on and on, and many times her situation was more than she could bear.
A strange sense of belonging
Ironically, the prison visits were the only occasions where Silvia felt a sense of belonging. As the wife of a prisoner, in society’s eyes, she, too, was considered guilty of a crime. She was stigmatized nearly everywhere she went. But standing there, in line with the other women, she felt completely accepted by them.
As the months of Wuille’s detention turned into years, Silvia’s compassion for the other waiting women grew. Silvia’s conversations with women in line were often quite revealing.
“How do you manage to make ends meet financially?”
Silvia asked one of the other women.
The woman took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled slowly.“Well, of course I haven’t told my husband, but I’ve taken in a roommate.”
“Oh, really? That’s a good idea. Is her husband in prison too?”
“No, no,”the woman laughed.“It’s not a woman. It’s a man I work with. He always liked me, even before the arrest. So it’s a fair exchange. He gets what he wants, and I get some financial help.”
If only we had known
By the time I heard Silvia’s story for myself. I was privileged to have a long conversation with her, I was convinced that we hadn’t done enough for her and her family. Silvia’s marriage to a man accused of terrorism had brought her into extreme poverty through no fault of her own. In order to feed her baby, she’d sometimes had to go hungry herself. Though she was an educated woman, she was unable to find steady employment because no one would hire a“terrorist‘s wife.”
If only we had known… I thought to myself as Silvia shared her experiences with me.
Silvia remained faithful. She worked job after job. Bright as she was, nothing was too menial for her. She cleaned houses. She did data entry. She worked as a secretary. She took any job she could find.
Meanwhile, Silvia’s mother had been sick, too, suffering from tuberculosis. In their precarious financial straits, the family didn’t have enough money to buy the proper medicine for her, so her health deteriorated. The care and worry for Silvia and Esteli also aggravated her physical problems. One night Silvia heard a scream from the bathroom.
“Silvia! Come and help me!”
Silvia rushed to her mother’s side. She got there just in time to prevent her from falling. Later that evening the frail old woman died in Silvia’s arms.
“A tremendous feeling of guilt flooded my heart,” Silvia told me, recalling the days after her mother’s death.“I had felt torn between my child, my husband, and my mother. I knew my mother was ill, but I was so busy taking care of Wuille and Esteli that I just couldn’t find the time and energy to look after her properly. I neglected her, but it was too late to do something about that—she was gone.”
Soul-searching questions
All the death and disappointment took their toll on Silvia. For the first time since his arrest, she began to feel anger toward Wuille. This stirred up an enormous wrestling match between her mind and her emotions. Her mind told her that Wuille was not to be blamed—it was not his fault that he was in prison. Yet her emotions continually reminded her that if Wuille had been home, she could have been a better daughter. She could have bought the medicines her mother needed.
“I had wanted so much to finish my education, but despite all my years of hard work at the university, look at the jobs I was doing. Now that my mother was gone, as the oldest daughter, I was the matriarch of the family as well. Wasn’t it time to start thinking about myself?”
Even in the midst of this emotional turmoil, Wuille’s letters from prison were a great source of comfort to Silvia. He encouraged his wife to be patient and to continue trusting in the Lord. Although her thoughts about him were not always positive, Silvia was strengthened by the assurance of his love for her and Esteli. She knew she had married a good husband.
Looking back, Silvia feels the third year of Wuille’s imprisonment was the hardest. But it was also the year God opened a new door for her. She met a lawyer who told her about a group called Paz y Esperanza, Peace and Hope. This legal organization advocated the cases of Christians who were unjustly imprisoned. Perhaps they could find ways to help Wuille Ruiz.
Open Doors was in close contact with this group, and that’s how we first learned about the Ruiz family’s predicament. Through our magazines and prayer ministry, we did what we could to ask people to pray for Wuille and Silvia. Before long, the Ruizes began to receive letters and cards of encouragement from all over the world, marking the end of their isolation. Pastors and churches in Peru also began to extend helping hands.
Then Silvia began to help out in the office of Paz y Esperanza.
“Contributing to the needs of others caused a huge change in me.” Silvia’s face brightened as she approached the end of her story. “To my surprise, I noticed that I was beginning to be more patient. I could better cope with my situation. I began to accept the court’s verdict and put Esteli first.”
“At night, when the business of the day had passed and I had time to think, I would often take out the pile of letters and cards I had received. Reading the hopeful words, especially the ones little children wrote to Esteli and me, lifted my spirits and helped me to cast all my cares upon the Lord.”
After more than five years in prison, and quite unexpectedly, Wuille was released. The evening before, at a large Christian gathering in Lima, the attendees had spent special time in prayer for the Ruiz family, asking the Lord to release Wuille. Contrary to custom, on the next day, a Saturday, President Fujimori of Peru went to his office and signed the decree that secured Wuille’s release under the Law of Pardon.
Help and healing
The day Silvia and I talked, it had been five months since her happy reunion with Wuille. Life was still not easy. The Ruiz family’s need our continued prayers for healing and direction. But in spite of everything, Silvia and Wuille are still following Jesus. Wuille has grown in his faith, and Silvia has become a very strong woman in her own right. We can only guess how God will use them in the future, but one thing is certain—they are promised that
“in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Hidden Sorrow Lasting Joy
The women of the Persecuted Church are not superwomen. Neither are their husband spiritual supermen. Some seem stronger than others, but all of them have their weak moments. Some remain standing during great pressure. Others give in to temptation.
These women have struggled with painful separation, loss, and uncertainty. They have been ostracized by their culture, left alone to care for fatherless children, and subjected to crushing poverty. Their faith has been stretched to the limit, and yet they have rarely been the subjects of prayer campaigns or human-rights projects. At a time when women’s rights have become a popular cause, these women‘s needs have remained virtually unknown.
“Hidden Sorrow, Lasting Joy” is a tribute to the courageous wives who are often overlooked and forgotten. It is the story of twenty women of courage and endurance, some of the stories do not have happy endings. But all of the stories are true.
*Name changed for security reasons; extracted from the book “Hidden Sorrow, Lasting Joy”
Image: A young Peruvian lady selling fruit juice on the streets
