True Woman in Indianapolis

Indira: My name is Indira. I live in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

Paula Hendricks: A couple years ago, some friends of Indira traveled from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to Chicago for a conference. When they got back, she noticed a real difference in their lives.

Indira: And it was something wonderful. It was like a life-changing experience for them. I started to be curious

Paula: So as an even bigger group from the Dominican Republic prepared to attend a similar conference in Indianapolis, Indira asked God to help her with the travel and the expenses.

Indira: Like a girl talking to her father, “God, I want to go, but I don’t have a visa, and I don’t have money, but You are all-powerful. So if You want me to go, You can do it.”

Paula: She’d been refused a visa twice, but decided to pray, and tried one more time.

Indira: They gave me ten years of visa. “Lord, thank You; thank You! This is like a gift. Okay, Lord, You gave me the visa, now I need the money.”

Paula: Indira started working hard to earn the money.

Indira: I have to be diligent.

Paula: Selling hair supplies, she earned 30 percent of what she needed to travel to the conference.

Indira: After that, someone put in an envelope in the offering in the church for me. It was like fifty percent of the money. After that on the day of my birthday, my friends put money in an envelope for me to come.

God is good, and He is all-powerful. We normally say it, but we don’t believe it.

Paula: That’s how Indira found herself joining over 100 others from the Dominican Republic traveling to Indianapolis this past weekend.

Bob Lepine: Well ladies, good evening and welcome to Indianapolis True Woman 2010. It’s a thrill to see all of you here.

My name is Bob Lepine from FamilyLife. We’ve got ladies here from Canada, from Germany, from Ireland, from the Dominican Republic, and from the United Arab Emirates. So we are thrilled with the representation of women from all over.

Paula: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Wednesday, September 29. I’m Paula Hendricks, a blogger at TrueWoman.com. I’m here to let you know a little bit about what happened this past weekend as women from around the country and around the globe convened in Indianapolis.

Bob: There are 6,000 women here.

Paula: Some members of our staff are going to tell you just a few of these stories. Carrie Gaul answers letters and emails from our listeners, and she’s here to tell you about another True Woman attendee. Like Indira, each woman came to this conference with her own hopes, struggles, and needs. This was not a faceless crowd.

Bob: You’ve been prayed for by name.

Paula: It was a coming together of 6,000 individual stories.

Carrie: Along with the Dominican Republic, the setting for today’s stories include Guatemala, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and Kentucky.

Renee Hargrove: My name is Renee Hargrove, and I live in Pewee Valley Kentucky, which is right outside of Louisville.

Carrie: She’s a leader in the women’s ministry in her church. She considered bringing a group to the True Woman conference in Indianapolis. But before bringing a group there, she wanted to check things out by attending the conference in Chattanooga first. The message from Voddie Baucham is what really stood out to her.

Renee: It really inspired me that we had gotten so far away from what biblical womanhood was.

Dr. Voddie Baucham (conference message): The picture that is painted here is an older woman who as a result of having walked with God and being conformed to the image of Christ, opens her mouth, and pearls of biblical wisdom come out.

Renee: I was inspired by how we needed to get that message out. That’s when I began to realize that I needed to start sharing that message with others and teaching women what I had just learned about Titus 2 and the biblical concept of that.

Carrie: For Renee, True Woman is more than a conference. It’s a movement.

Renee: I did go out to different churches and spoke about True Woman, and the need of coming to this conference and how it would impact their life. But for those who couldn’t come, I just implemented it in my Bible study, and I began to take little parts of the Manifesto and share it in my Bible study. I would say, “Did you ever think about this?” and “How does this impact your life?”

I have an 11-year-old daughter, and I began to realize that I needed to start using those values now with her. So I just take the Manifesto, a part of it a week, and then just implement it in her life.

I try to use it as a daily thing with relationships with younger women. My husband has a Sunday school class, and I have the opportunity to take women one-on-one out to lunch and begin to use it.

The Lord just opened doors to begin to share with these women . “Did you ever think about this?” or “God says in Titus 2 that this would be a great concept that you might want to be reading about.” So it’s been an awesome opportunity to take these young women and share with them.

Carrie: And Renee wanted to share this message with a group of women in Pacux, Guatemala. She and her family had taken several trips there.

Renee: “Lord, how can I do this in Guatemala?” The culture’s different, but God’s Word is the same whether it’s in Guatemala or here. God still has the same mandate for us to be biblical women.

I thought, “You need to take that back in some form, and be able to share it with the women there.”

So our family went back there in June. For the first time, we were able to do a little seminar for just the women. So we after much prayer decided to do the Manifesto in a very small setting in a very short period of time—a Saturday morning.

We were expecting about 10 women from this little village to come, and we had actually close to 30 women who came. We talked about biblical womanhood. We actually went through the Manifesto point by point and talked about what that looked like in real life and some practical things of how they could do that in the country they lived in.

We went through all of that. We prayed with them at a foot-washing ceremony before we signed the Manifesto to show servanthood and how we are to serve the Lord. In serving God, it is through biblical womanhood. We then gave them the opportunity to sign the Manifesto. We had a time of commitment and prayer over that.

Carrie: Even with all this experience teaching and spreading the True Woman message, Renee Hargrove still had a lot to learn when she brought a group from her church to the True Woman Conference in Indianapolis. For instance, Mary Kassian’s message especially spoke to her.

Mary Kassian (conference message): History is full of women who decided to take a walk on the wild side, but the Bible warns us against wildness. It often specifically addresses the problem of girls going wild.

Renee: At first I thought, “Oh, that’s really not me. I never did those things that were in Proverbs 7.

Mary Kassian (conference message): And so many of us, like at the beginning of the passage, we stand and we look out the lattice at other people, and we fail to acknowledge that there is wildness in our own hearts.

Renee: But the longer I listened to her, the more I began to think, “Yes, I have taken a walk on the wild side—trying to manipulate things in my kids live to make the outcome what I wanted it to be rather than what God wanted it to be.” So yes, I had been the Proverbs 7 woman before. But now I realize that I really want to be the Proverbs 31 woman and focus on Christ.

Mary Kassian (conference message):True womanhood requires intentionally turning from wild to wise and to be intentional about it.

Karen Loritts (conference message): Trust in Him and God’s going to act.

Renee: Karen Loritts’ message on her crisis was again an opportunity to talk about trust.

Karen Loritts (conference message): Without Him, I would have melted away. I would have stayed in bed and not got up. Because it’s just too hard to get up every morning and deal with what our crisis was going to be.

Renee: I my own life, to see how little I sometimes trust the Lord, and how I as a woman I like to manipulate, and I like to control, and how that’s not right. I need to let go and trust God for the outcome and just pour myself into Him and just keep my eyes focused on Him.

Karen Loritts (conference message): Am I burdened still? Yes, I’m still burdened. I have no idea where this will all end up. Has my joy been waning? Honestly, yes. I have a good face sometimes, but if you could see my heart, my heart breaks for my children. My heart breaks for the future of my family. My heart breaks for this other family. My heart is broken.

Carrie: The message from Joni Eareckson Tada was meaningful to Renee as well.

Joni Eareckson Tada (conference message): You know as well as I do that when pain lumbers through the front door and squats down right in the middle of your life and makes itself at home day after day, year after year, you could almost crack.

Renee: Joni’s message was so encouraging when a different crisis that you see in people’s lives and some of the crises that the women in Guatemala go through, just to be able to go down and share part of what Joni shared, that our lives are in front of the heavenly beings and how that is a message to them of God’s character, and being able to share that with them, as what a reflection that’s going to be in heaven.

Carrie: As Rene experienced the Manifesto signing ceremony in Indianapolis, her mind went immediately to the women in Pacux, Guatemala who have recently come to know this message.

Renee: I still see those women, and it brings tears to my eyes.

(reading of the Manifesto in Spanish)

Signing the same Manifesto that those women are signing today is an impact that has been made upon my life, because they took it so seriously. I’m excited about when I go back to see how they have implemented that in their lives.

So a week from Tuesday we are going back, and I’m going to talk some more about biblical womanhood and how to be a mentor and how to teach the Word. Mainly the next time we go back, it’s the pastors’ wives and the Christian leaders in the village, so they can in turn can pour themselves into younger women and teach them the same things from Titus 2 that we had taught them. So it’s exciting to see what God’s doing there.

Carrie: After the True Woman Conference in Indianapolis, the True Woman message is going to continue spreading through women like Renee.

Rene Hanebutt: Hi, I’m Rene Hanebutt, and I work for Revive Our Hearts. I am the volunteer coordinator for the True Woman Conference. So I help coral all of our volunteers who help us put on the event.

Now remember at the beginning of the program when Bob Lepine listed the countries represented?

Bob Lepine: And from the United Arab Emirates, so we are thrilled . . .

Rene: A lot of the women were intrigued by who would show up from the United Arab Emirates.

Imelda: My name is Imelda. I’m from Dubai, but I’m originally from the Philippines.

Rene: That soft spoken voice comes from a woman with a huge heart and a tremendous amount of courage. She left her country of the Philippines and moved to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where she could find work. Eventually, she found what she considered to be a very good job with an American company.

Imelda: I became the executive to the Vice President.

Rene: This was when the economy was booming in Dubai. It seemed like there was a bright future ahead for Imelda. But there were some problems brewing. She had believed in Jesus for a long time, but she describes herself during that time as “stubborn.”

Imelda: I always make my own way and own will. But I’m stubborn, and I don’t show to people that I made a mistake. I’m so stubborn.

Rene: And Imelda also failed to consistently show her husband respect.

Imelda: And I am not submissive.

Rene: A couple years ago Imelda was struggling with some issues and conflicts. She didn’t feel like her prayers were going anywhere, and she needed encouragement.

Imelda: I was looking for some practical messages about the tongue. I searched the Internet and I found Nancy’s website.

Rene: ReviveOurHearts.com provided Imelda with solid teaching each weekday with transcripts and articles.

Imelda: It has changed my life—dramatically changed my life

Rene: It helped her embrace some important God-given roles in her life and set some new priorities.

Imelda: being a mother and a wife and a woman

Rene: Imelda was so changed by the teaching of Revive Our Hearts, and she began to share the message with the women in her church in her community. Christianity is tolerated in the United Arab Emirates. Thankfully, the Lord led her to a church made up of immigrants from the Philippines.

Imelda: We formed a group in the church called the True Womanhood Fellowship—around 60 women.

Rene: Living in Dubai, it’s tough for Imelda to donate or receive resources from Revive Our Hearts. But she still found a way to spread the message of revival and biblical womanhood to the women of her church. She simply downloaded the messages each day and made CDs for them.

Imelda: Yes and every message that Nancy sends is just a life-changing message to me. I have received feedback that they know Nancy and her messages and some speakers who are guests at Revive Our Hearts, and I say, “Oh, it is good that you are listening.” It is good that they are listening, because I want them to experience the changes that God had brought to me through Nancy’s messages.

Rene: Imelda also teaches the women in her church, basing her messages on series she hears on Revive Our Hearts.

Imelda: Last time, I taught on “Facing the Future with Joy,” and before that I taught on mentoring the younger women.

Rene: The worldwide financial downturn has had a huge effect on the once booming economy in Dubai, the Filipino community has been hit especially hard. And now, Imelda says, even more hearts are open to the truth.

Imelda: It’s a great opportunity for us because their hearts are all tender to God. In fact, in our church, it’s a very united and stable group in Dubai. I can see that.

Rene: About a year ago, Imelda began hearing about the True Woman Conferences coming in 2010. She asked God to make it possible for her to go. It’s hard for Filipinos to obtain a visa in Dubai, but she trusted God.

Imelda: Even on the day itself, I said, “God, if you want me to go to Indianapolis, I’ll get this visa, if not, there is no way.” And I got it with no problems at all. It was very smooth.

Rene: As Imelda prepared for the conference, she got bad news. Just a couple weeks ago, the recession became even more personal.

Imelda: I just got laid off from my job.

Rene: So in the middle of financial uncertainty, Imelda traveled alone from the United Arab Emirates to Indianapolis.

Imelda: I don’t know anyone. I just came by faith.

Rene: But when she arrived, she discovered that she did have many friends among the Revive Our Hearts’ staff, starting with me.

Imelda: I first found Rene because she was the one who arranged the volunteers. She said, “Oh, Imelda!” And she introduced me to Angela. And she said, “Oh, Imelda! We’ve been praying for you!” And then I met Debbie Hancock. And she said, “Oh, you’re Imelda!” I said, “Oh, you know me?”

I’m very happy because I know they prayed for me specifically. And the lady at the resource center said, “You’re Imelda? We’ve been praying for you.” I’m just so delighted and so blessed.

Rene: We often say True Woman is more than a conference. It’s a movement of the Lord. Here’s what we mean by that. Imelda came, not just wanting to learn a few things, she came to be able to equip the women at her home—the women of Dubai and the women of the Philippines. And not only that, Imelda left with the hope of spreading it to a whole continent.

Imelda: It’s my prayer that Nancy can reach all Asia. It’s my burden. Yes, it’s my burden—Asian countries.

Rene: So was Imelda happy that she came to True Woman?

Imelda: Of course! Of course! Some feel I should be fearful or something, but I know that God is leading me and He’ll make all things perfect for me.

Paula: We’ve seen how the True Woman movement is spreading—to Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and the United Arab Emirates. And we’ve seen how women working in these countries came together in Indiana last weekend. Next we’ll hear a story about the way this message is affecting women who didn’t have to travel quite so far for this conference.

Sandy Hunt: My name is Sandy Hunt, and I’m from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Paula: Sandy describes her attitude as a younger woman by quoting a television slogan from the 1970s.

Sandy: I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. So it gave you the illusion that you can do this work and then come home be the same wife. I remember in college in those days, I had my three-piece suit, and that was me.

Paula: This attitude continued to affect Sandy, even after becoming a pastor’s wife and heading up the women’s ministry at her church.

It was in her role as ministry leader that Sandy heard about the True Woman conference. She figured that before she could commit to taking a group of women to the conference in Indianapolis, she’d better check out the conference in Chattanooga first.

Sandy: So I felt that I needed a personal victory. I needed to see what God had for the women of our church. So my prayer was, “God, please do a work in me. If you’re calling me to do this, God, I need You to do something in me. I can’t with these women in an area that I’m still struggling with myself.”

Paula: So Sandy headed to Chattanooga this past March to give the True Woman Conference a try.

Sandy: It was an awesome experience. He had to break down my old ideals—my old ideals, and then build me up with His ideal, His plan for me. One of the personal victories that I didn’t realize I struggled with when I was doing the book study, Lies Women Believe, it dealt with submission.

I felt like that was an area in my life that I understood God’s Word, and it wasn’t a problem for me. And that’s what I shared with God. But God had me do some self-reflection in the way that I sometimes respond to my husband. God showed me that wasn’t godly.

Paula: As a “get it done” manager, she was used to being in charge of things. That applied to the way she spoke to employees, as well as her husband.

Sandy: But when you come home, he’s the head of the house—you aren’t managing. He showed me the things in ways I had dishonored my husband. I had to repent. “Yes God, I’m in agreement with You. I have dishonored, not just my husband, but You.” God has shown me how to be that helper. That was the other word that I struggled with—helper. I can do this—helper?

So God let me see the helper. He reminded me of the Helper, that Jesus said, “I’m going to go to my Father, and He’s going to send another, the Helper, to be there with you, to encourage you, to love you.” And I said, “Oh, that’s my role for my husband, to be there, to encourage him, to pray for him.”

Paula: Sandy’s friend Cecilia also attended True Woman in Chattanooga. Here’s how she describes it.

Cecilia Williams: Life transforming, I would say. I would say I’m probably in the middle of an extreme make-over.

Paula: After the Chattanooga event, these women group leaders knew one thing for sure.

Cecelia: We decided to bring the group here to Indianapolis.

Sandy: After returning from the conference, my husband did notice the difference because I was very intentional to be there to support him, to be his helper. He noticed the change. And one of the things that he does, he leads the men’s ministry at our church. So he told the men, “Every woman has to go to this conference. You guys need to buy your wives a ticket. They need to go!”

Bob Lepine: I hope you’re ready, because God will speak to you.

Sandy: We’re not a very big church, so we were really blessed. We ended up bringing 28 women from our congregation with us. Then we were able to reach out to other communities and other churches that were tacked along with that.

Bob: Let’s welcome to the platform Dr. Crawford Loritts.

Cecelia: Yes, that was powerful.

Dr. Crawford Loritts (conference message): We pour our passions out for the bigger house and for more money and for labels that we wear and for stuff that we have and our body image. I wonder; I absolutely wonder if God just does not say, “Is that all there is to you?”

Cecelia: The way that Crawford Loritts preached where he talked about this uncommon, unconditional, supernatural love, and how we turn that affection to things of the world, but it only belongs to God. That was transforming.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss (conference message): There’s the ripple effect of our lives that extends much further than most of us realize—our impact upon the unbelieving world.

Sandy: You know God’s Word, but it’s when that application part comes. Just hearing Nancy talk about it last night, the Lord just showed me an easy, easy way to remember the Titus 2 woman and how it should have application in my life.

Cecelia: When you’re confronted with the truth of the Word, it requires a response.

Nancy (conference message): If He is Lord, then the only right answer is, “Yes, Lord.”

Sandy: What’s really exciting for me is that my daughter is here. My daughter is 25 years old. And what’s so ideal for me is that when I was where she’s at, I didn’t understand God’s truths for me. I just wish I could have received it earlier. So to see her there and just absorbing it all, is just a blessing to me.

Paula: We’ve only heard just a few stories from the True Woman Conference in Indianapolis. Multiply the impact we’ve heard by about 6000, and you’ll see why we’re so thankful for all God is doing to spread the True Woman Movement around the world.

There’s one more True Woman Conference on the schedule in Fort Worth, Texas, October 14-16. We’re anticipating many more stories to be told about God’s power to transform women’s lives.

What’s your story? How might it be different if you were to join us at the True Woman Conference in Fort Worth, October 14-16? To find out more, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call our True Woman number at 1-877-966-2608.

Revive Our Hearts is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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