God’s River Flows in Spain & Brazil

Dannah Gresh: Like a river that gets stronger, deeper, and wider as it grows, God’s kingdom is expanding around the world! Here’s Laura Gonzalez.

Laura Gonzalez: The Lord is always working! We might think, Oh no, nothing is happening. He’s working! We cannot perceive it, but He’s working. It’s just so encouraging!

Dannah: We’ll hear how He’s at work in Europe and South America, today on Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. It’s Monday, May 5. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Let’s say you’re on a scenic drive. You’re driving along not really seeing anything all that spectacular . . . but then . . . you come up over the crest of a hill or you turn a corner and you get a glimpse of a grand, glorious vista!

It’s not the full “take-your–breath-away” moment yet, but you start seeing hints that there’s something amazing ahead. How does that make you feel? Excited? You want to see more? Isn’t that like life with Jesus?

Every now and then He allows us to get glimpses of what He’s doing in the world, and it’s so encouraging; it makes us want to see more! Recently here at Revive Our Hearts, the Lord has been pulling back the curtain just a little bit.

He’s reminding us that He’s at work in ways we could never have predicted. It’s beautiful, and it’s exciting, and today we want to share just a few of those glimpses with you—places where there’s a “break in the trees,” and we are saying, “Wow, that is amazing! Thank You, Lord!” 

The first has to do with a conference we held recently in Spain. With us are Laura Gonzalez and Patricia Saladin. Laura lives in the Chicago area. She’s the Director of our Spanish language ministry, Aviva Nuestros Corazones. And Patricia is in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. She’s the voice of Nancy in Spanish.

Ladies, both of you were at the recent conference in Granada, Spain. I want to thank you for joining us today. Laura, I feel like every time I go to a Revive Our Hearts event—it doesn’t matter what the language is—I feel the Lord moving in my life! I’m there to minister to women, but I’m ministered to. How did the Lord minister to you in Spain?

Laura: It is just as you say, Dannah. Sometimes I look at the conference approaching and I think, “Oh, another conference . . . I have to travel!” Or in this case, I had to prepare a message. It’s daunting, and it looks like we’re going to cross this huge mountain!

But then, when we’re there, and we see the hunger of the women, and we see their happiness, their joy, the way they are so thirsty for the Word and for the messages; it’s just so encouraging!

We don’t really know what the Lord is doing in the hearts of these women. So when you meet them and you hear the testimonies and they come to you and they hug you and they tell you they’re so grateful we're there, and what the Lord has done in their churches, in their lives, in their marriages . . .

People will tell you, “My marriage was really in a bad situation, and after I came across the ministry, it has totally changed. It’s changed me, and now this has changed me.” Patricia and I, we are the ones that are most encouraged as we see that!

Patricia Saladin: Well, everything that Laura mentioned, I could say “amen” to. But for me, it has a very special flavor. I don’t know if you know, Dannah, that my family from my parents’ side is all from Spain.

I have been visiting Spain for many, many years. After becoming a believer, every summer that we went I felt sad because the word “God” was not even in anybody’s mouth. They are famous for having a very hard culture and a very hard heart toward God, and that is true! It is true in Spain.

So, to see what we were able to see was not only encouraging, but it is a miracle working! It is the miracle and the power of the Word of God in the hearts of these women!

Dannah: What a blessing it was to have over one thousand women in attendance. The conference sold out months in advance. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth recorded a greeting for the women who were there. Let’s listen to some of what she shared. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: ¡Buenos tardes, mujeres y bienvenidas! And that’s about the limit to my Spanish! So now I’m going to let my friend Patricia de Saladin pick up the Spanish, and I’ll stick with the English. We are so grateful that you are here!

This event has been so prayed for and longed for, for so long . . . and now it’s here! You’re here! And the presence of God’s Spirit is here and will be throughout this whole weekend as we come together to talk about the glory and the beauty of womanhood.

Dannah: Just last week on Revive Our Hearts we heard a message Nancy gave on Ezekiel chapter 47. If you missed it, you can hear it on the Revive Our Hearts app or at ReviveOurHearts.com. As she spoke to the women in Spain, Nancy referred to that same passage.

Nancy: . . . chapter 47 where the prophet talks about a vision that God gave him of a tiny little river, a trickle of water flowing out from the temple of God in Jerusalem. The trickle got deeper until soon it was ankle deep, and then he walked further and it was knee deep.

And then he walked further and it was waist deep, and eventually that trickle of water became a river . . . and that river became a great, deep river, so deep that no one could walk through it! What is that all about?

The water and the river in Scripture is a picture of the Holy Spirit moving from the presence of God, moving through His people into our world. We are seeing God do what was first a trickle, and it’s getting deeper, it’s getting higher. It’s been spreading through the United States, through Latin America, through Europe, in Spain. In some places it’s still just a little trickle—maybe where you live. It’s not much, but God is there, and God is at work!

And as you go from this place, that river of God is going in you and through you to take the beauty and the glory of Christ to your world! We long for that day when, as Scripture says, “The glory of the Lord will cover the earthas the waters cover the sea” (see Habakkuk 2:14).

So you are part of something that God is doing in our world! It may seem small, but one day it is going to be great, and you and I have an opportunity, a privilege to see what He is doing and to be a part of it!

Dannah: Laura, tell us about the theme, and why you chose that for the country of Spain.

Laura: Yes. The churches that we worked with—one specific one in Cordoba, which was where Patricia went in 2019—holds a women’s event in their church that they call Ser Mujer (To Be a Woman) every spring.

So this time they said, “We should talk to ANC to see if they want to take over this conference, and they want to do it.” So he came up with the theme of the conference, Ishah. It is from Genesis 2:23 when the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman [isha] because she was taken out of man [ish].”

So he set the theme for the conference. It was perfect for us because it was our message. Patricia and I loved that message!

Dannah: I know. Patricia, the last time I saw you, I saw you just before the conference. You were laboring over, praying over, your message. Where did the Lord have you land with it? Share with us what meant the most to you in what you shared.

Patricia: Well, the name of the conference was Ishah, but the subtitle was The Beauty and the Glory of Being a Woman. I really loved that, because many women now have taken the lie that it is not good to be a woman, that we have the worst part. And he wanted us to highlight the beauty and the glory of womanhood! 

And really, the Lord dealt with me. I had just two things: being a helper, how God is our Helper. Anytime we are able to reflect His image, because everything starts with His image . . . But the second thing is that we are created under authority—under authority in our homes, under authority in the church—and how being under His authority means that I can display the beauty and the glory of being a woman when I am being His helper.

Dannah: That’s beautiful, well said. Laura, as you taught on the concept of spiritual motherhood, among other things, how did the Lord refresh your passion for that?

Laura: I think ever since I came across that teaching in True Woman ’08, I have felt it to be the calling of my life, to mentor others. But more than that, in a time like we’re living, where women are not really thinking about family . . . They’re thinking more about their professions, their careers. They’re living for self and self-care and all of this. Family is left for “if”—if one day they would have it. 

For me, it's very personal because when we married, we were not in Christ. We were just nominal Catholics. We thought we were in control of how many children we would have. And then the Lord, with different experiences in our lives, showed us that He was the One in control all along.

When we finally came to that realization—that children are a blessing—it was too late for us. I could never have any more children. So when I had to talk about this now, it was something that was really in my heart. I love to speak from things that are really in my heart and not just in my head. So, it was a difficult topic to address.

Dannah: Tell me about one woman that you got to sit there and have that front row seat to watch God’s Word and God’s Spirit sweep her away in that river of truth.

Laura: I can remember two specifically that came to me. In my talk I shared about my abortion and what it meant and how the Lord forgave me and healed me. But we live with the consequences of that.

I shared about what the gospel does when the gospel comes into our lives, and the forgiveness we have in Christ, and how all our sins are nailed to the cross. And I think this truth liberated a few women that came to me at the end to confess abortions that they had never confessed in their lives. Hearing my story and hearing what the Lord had done and what the gospel does, they felt like a heaviness was lifted from them!

Dannah: Wow. How old do you think those women were, if you had to guess?

Laura: One of them was, like, my age—I am sixty-four. She probably had never talked about this before, so it was great for her to be able to express it. I don’t know that she shared it with anybody else, maybe she did, but she shared it with me.

Dannah: Well, that’s the beginning of healing, right? God gives us His Spirit, His Son for the forgiveness of our sins, and He gives us the Body [the Church] for the healing of our hearts and minds. That was a powerful moment for those two women. It probably was multiplied to dozens and dozens in that room, I imagine! 

Laura: Yes! 

Dannah: Patricia, what do you remember? 

Patricia: Well, one highlight for me was, at the beginning, two young sisters came to say “hi” to me because I know their mom. One was maybe early in her twenties and one like twenty-two or twenty-three. 

I said, “Hi!”—we even took a selfie—and, “So happy to be here!” But I didn’t know where their hearts were. During the conference I kept looking with my eyes for them, but I couldn’t find them.

They are young girls, I thought, Well, maybe they left. They may be in Granada, just walking around and seeing the beauty of the city, because I thought the message was really hard. I kept thinking about them and praying, “Lord, where are they, where are they?”

At the end, Dannah, when they came to me, their faces were worth everything for me! In their eyes and in their faces they had a mix of a conviction, and at the same time a joy of having found truth in the midst of all these lies!

One of them told me that Laura Perry’s testimony of coming from gender confusion, she said, “Wow, we know that the Lord spoke to us! I had some decisions to make, and this was really for me. The Lord can change anything in me. If He has done it in other people, He can do it for me!”

And so, I was so thankful to the Lord to let me see that the Lord is rescuing these women everywhere. Dannah, it was amazing! 

Dannah: So beautiful! You know, the river flowing through the Spanish ministry is so beautiful, like big and beautiful!

Laura: And now that you mention that, Dannah, as I was thinking about the work of the Lord in Europe, I remembered that verse, “Never despise the days of small beginnings” (see Zech. 5:10).

I mean, the Lord is always working. We might think, Oh no, nothing is happening. He’s working. We cannot perceive it, but He’s working. 

Dannah: Now, let’s pray with Nancy.

Nancy: Thank You for what You did in Spain. This is amazing! We rejoice in it, we celebrate it, we give You thanks, we praise You, we worship. In Spain, a country that has had so little, in Europe, a continent that since the Reformation has had so little evidence of revival and vibrant Christian living, and the spread of the gospel has been hard, hard, hard!

But thank You for these women from Latin America who don’t take “hard, hard, hard” for an answer! They got over there. They believed You. They prayed, they sacrificed. They were generous with their lives and their time. They exercised faith, and look at what You are doing!

It’s just the beginning. There’s this trickle, but it’s going to be a great river—not only in Europe, but in Africa, in Asia, more in Latin America, and more. Oh God, we need it here in North America! We pray not for mercy drops but for showers of blessing!

Thank You that at this moment, in this season, You are letting us have a part in what You are doing! We’re so grateful! We love You; we bless You, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: Amen. That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. And thank you Laura Gonzalez and Patricia Saladin for joining us today. God’s Spirit is working! It’s an incredible privilege for us to be a part of that—some of the “drops” in that life-giving river!

Now, if you’ve supported Revive Our Hearts in the past, we want you to know that the Lord has used your prayers and your giving to do amazing things. Now, He doesn’t really need us, but He allows us to join Him in His work, and you are a very important part of that!

So, thank you. It’s because of your giving and your praying that we are able to do what we do! If you’d like to support us, this month is a great time to do that. We’re asking the Lord to provide $810,000 by the end of May, and we’d love to hear from you. 

Even if you can’t give at this time, you can still pray. Don’t take anything away from your regular giving to your church, but as the Lord leads, if you’re able to go above and beyond, consider Revive Our Hearts. 

We’ve heard about the recent gathering in Spain, but there’s more. The week following the Granada conference, our friend Mary Kassian traveled to Brazil. She spoke to several thousand women in three different meetings.

She shared with the Revive Our Hearts staff in a recent chapel service from her home in Canada just after she returned from Brazil. Here’s the International Director of Revive Our Hearts, Hannah Kurtz, with a further introduction.

Hannah Kurtz: Mary, you spoke seven times on this trip to Brazil only one of those messages was repeated. On top of that, you were in panel discussions, probably five different podcast radio interviews, and so our time was packed! I think we’re all still recovering from this trip!

So, Mary, I don’t think you probably fully knew what you signed up for, but I would love for you just to share as you are thinking back to the time that we had. What are some of the top-of-mind highlights? Were you expecting to see all the things that you saw on this trip?

Mary Kassian: Well, when you go to speak at a place, I feel like you’re always either plowing the ground, planting seeds, watering the seeds. But here in Brazil it was quite amazing, because I felt like the fruit was just ripe and falling from the trees. 

 

I was so overwhelmed by just the readiness of the Brazilian women to respond to the Word of God and just how they had already been using especially the True Woman 101 and 102 studies that were dramatically impactful in their lives and the Portuguese podcast as well. So, the fruit was just ripe and falling from the trees!

Hannah: Nicky Lorimer heads up the Portuguese team for Revive Our Hearts.

Nicky Lorimer: We were so pleased, Mary, to have you with us in Brazil. That was a dream come true, something that we’ve been praying about for many years now. And so just to see that all come together the way it did, it was so clear to see that God was leading the way as we went through those days. I was amazed everywhere we went just to see the response. 

It’s been about a year and three months since we went daily with the Revive Our Hearts podcast, so we’ve not had that much time to share what the podcast is. But we were just so busy receiving and hearing from women about how blessed they’ve been and how they’re listening every day, and about how their lives have been transformed! It was very rewarding!

Mary: I was astonished at the number of young women there were! Sixteen- to twenty-five-year-olds were a huge proportion of the audience. I was overwhelmed at how passionate they were about the message of biblical womanhood. But even more so, how passionate they were for Jesus for their generation!

So, that was one of the highlights for me, seeing all the young women and getting to interface with them. It really was something! 

Hannah: Yes, that was very sweet. I remember sitting there in that room, hearing all these stories. I was sitting between Mary and Angela, and we were just like, “Where are the Kleenexes?! They shared story after story after story of all these women who have gone through these studies, and it has completely transformed their view of womanhood and their view of the Lord!

One woman who has stuck out to us, because we’ve gotten to meet here a few times, her name is Jacqueline . . .

Mary: Jacqueline, yeah!

Hannah: Mary, you got to talk to her for quite a while.

Mary: Yeah, she was right there when we arrived at the hotel. I think she was waiting for us! Jacqueline was an exotic dancer who had come to Christ, and then was being discipled through the True Woman materials. 

She is using True Woman 101 and 201 for discipling other women who are out on the street: prostitutes, also sex trade workers. She is having Bible studies with them and she’s going to be going into the prisons now as well. Those are “her people,” she says and she is reaching them for Jesus!

She’s using the resources of the True Woman message and of Revive Our Hearts, because these women are just so broken, and so they need that message of healing and restoration! She was so excited and just spreading the Word. She’s had several Bible studies, and it’s so exciting to hear! 

There were so many stories. There’s the story of a woman who was really healed from just the darkness and depression that had wrapped her up. There were women who came and confessed sin and were released. There were women who stepped out of relationships that were not godly relationships. There were so many stories after stories after stories, we cannot even begin to share all of them. They were dramatic stories of the Lord’s grace and goodness, using the materials of Revive Our Hearts, True Woman 101 and 201.

This is just so encouraging! It was encouraging to me, and I just hope it was encouraging to you, because you were part of this story as well. 

Hannah: There are so many more testimonies that are still coming in; we probably could have taken up this whole chapel just to tell them, but I hope it gives you just a glimpse of all that we saw and heard. 

We still keep getting messages! There are groups that are forming now because they came to the conference, and now they want to go through some of our studies, so it’s just this ripple effect. That’s only going to continue going!

Dannah: We’ve been listening to Mary Kassian, Nicky Lorimer, and Hannah Kurtz, excited about what God is up to in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries around the world. To use Nancy’s analogy . . . no, to use the prophet Ezekiel’s analogy: God’s Spirit is like a growing, increasing river! 

We shared this with you, not to boast in ourselves, but to say, “Look at what God is doing! We are so excited about it!” Now, if you’d like to be a part of it, you are more than welcome to contact us with a donation. To do that, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/donate or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow Nancy will help us see parallels between King David and Jesus as we study the preparations David made for building the temple. And guess what? There are some sweet lessons we can apply to ourselves, too. I’m Dannah Gresh inviting you back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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