Mujer Verdadera 2015: A Guided Tour

Leslie Basham: If you've ever attended a True Woman conference, you'll remember the excitement in the air. Here are the opening moments from True Woman 2010.

Bob Lepine: Well, good evening! Welcome to True Woman '10 here in beautiful downtown Fort Worth!

Leslie: And then in 2012.

Bob: Welcome True Woman 2012! Are you excited to be here? (women cheer)

Leslie: And then last fall in 2014.

Bob: Welcome to True Woman '14. Are you glad to be here? Yes, I think you are!

Leslie: But in February, True Woman 2015 sounded a little different.

Fausto González: Mujeres! Gloria a Dios! ¡Bienvenidas! Beinvenidas Aviva Nuestros Corazones . . .

Leslie: Yes, the first True Woman Conference in all of Latin America was held earlier this year in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. Pastor Fausto González read a list of the countries represented, the enthusiasm reached proportions more akin to a sporting event.

Fausto: Alemania Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela y República Dominicana! (women cheer enthusiastically)

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Monday, May 18, 2015.

Beyond the cheering, True Woman is all about God's Word. It's about the gospel. It's about helping women find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. And that really is something to get excited about! My name is Leslie Basham, and today, I'm excited to share the microphone with Annamarie Sauter.

Annamarie Sauter: Hi, it's a privilege to be with you.

Leslie: Annamarie is one of the announcers for the Spanish version of Revive Our Hearts, Aviva Nuestros Corazones. Did I say that right?

Annamarie (Annita): Yes, yes.

Leslie: Annita, thank you for joining us, and thanks for giving us a report on what God did recently in your home country.

Annita: I'm going to take you on a quick tour of Mujer Verdadera—True Woman 2015. In our first "exhibit," Nancy Leigh DeMoss gives us a little bit of background.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I had the privilege of growing up in a home with parents who had a great heart for the Lord and for evangelism and for the nations. My dad took us on ministry and mission trips to Mexico and other parts of the world.

So as a little girl, I developed a heart for the world and for God's work in the world. My dad had a particular burden for Latin America. In fact, my parents spent their honeymoon doing three months of ministry in Latin America, in different countries—including the Dominican Republic.

Actually, my mother became pregnant with me during that time, and so she was carrying me while they were doing that missionary ministry work. I think all those things were seeds God planted in my heart to want to see His glory known among the nations—and particularly in Latin America.

Annita: The first True Woman Conference was in the Chicago area in 2008. Nancy Leigh DeMoss remembers being surprised that over one hundred women came from a small, Spanish-speaking country in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic.

Nancy: We didn't really know who they were or what had drawn them there. But as we got to know their stories, we were amazed at the spark, the fire, that God was putting in their hearts to go back home, to receive this message, to live it out.

This last time in the Dominican, I heard so many stories, one after the other, of women who had been at that first conference in Schaumburg, Illinois in 2008, whose lives had been radically transformed in the years since . . . who had gone back to the D.R. to live out that message.

In some cases, they had made costly choices, costly changes in their lives, in their work, in their families.

Cindy de Fuentes: I came to know the ministry of Revive Our Hearts when I attended the first True Woman Conference in 2008. Essentially,    Revive Our Hearts, and now Aviva Nuestros Corazones, is the main tool the Lord has used to minister to my life and to convict me of my sin.

He has used the Word preached through this ministry to change my life—"180 degrees."

Annita: Cindy felt convicted that she needed to spend less time at work and more time at home with her children. In the years since True Woman '08, she and her husband, Bernardo, have made some drastic changes to their lifestyle.

Cindy: Everything in my life looks different than it did six years ago, and it has been Aviva Nuestros Corazones and Revive Our Hearts that the Lord has mainly used to convict me and change my way of life according to His Word.

Annita: Sydel Perez was also touched by True Woman '08. She shared with us that her initial reactions were very negative.

Sydel: One of my friends went to the True Woman Conference in '08. She bought a book called Becoming God's True Woman. I remember being pregnant with my first child and reading the book. I had been a Christian for a long time already, and it [the book] seemed outrageous to me.

I didn't really receive the message of biblical womanhood with a humble heart. Actually, it made me angry. I thought that these ladies were just outrageous to say that we have to submit, and that we have to say, "Yes, Lord!" to all these teachings. The Lord was going to work in my heart pretty soon after that.

Patricia de Saladín: I began to pray in 2008 when I attended the first True Woman Conference. It was so strong in me that I just kept thinking, We need to bring Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Revive Our Hearts. We need to put her in Spanish; I want Spanish-speaking women to listen to this.

Annita: Patricia and her friends began working to translate Revive Our Hearts programs into Spanish, and Patricia serves as the voice of Nancy Leigh DeMoss on Aviva Nuestros Corazones.

Nancy: Then a couple of years ago they started saying, "We need a True Woman conference." I think when they first started saying that we looked at them and said, "You don't know what 's involved in this! This is a ton of workl; this is really hard. We don't know if that's really what we should do."

Well, they were not to be deterred. They reminded me of the importunate widow in Luke chapter 18 who needed help, and she kept going to that judge and knocking on his door and knocking on his door until he finally said, "I've got to go help that woman!"

God, of course, is not like that unjust judge. But I know God was hearing those prayers, those petitions in heaven, of those Dominican women saying, "We need this. We want this. We must have this message for our women!"

And we began to hear it as well, and to say, "Okay, let's go! Let's believe God for this!" And I'll tell you, it's not a credit to my faith or my efforts or those of our team here in Michigan. We were all involved in this, but this small band of sisters in the Dominican, operating on a shoestring, a small team, limited budget, but great faith in the Lord. And they just set out to do this conference.

It's been a ton of work over a couple of years, and I've watched their diligence, their enthusiasm, their personal responsiveness to the message. This is not just theory to them. They're living out this message day after day, in their homes, in their churches . . . and I watched God honor their faith!

Annita: Continuing on our tour, we come to this room, where we see that there were many preparations leading up to Mujer Verdadera '15 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It's not an overstatement to say the anticipation levels were high.

Nancy: Twenty-three-hundred women from twenty-three different countries . . . this thing sold out. In fact, there were some stories (I don't know if they were humorous or sad) about women who didn't register soon enough and then found out they couldn't get into the conference.

We received an email from a pastor in Costa Rica who said, "My wife and four other women have bought airline tickets to get to the Dominican. They have hotel rooms in Santo Domingo . . . but we neglected to register. Now we went to the website and found that the conference is sold out!"

This man said, "My wife is going to kill me! You've got to get these five women into the conference! And of course, we could not help but find seats for those women. But there were others who said, "Why didn't we register?!" There were people who were knocking down the doors, wanting to come.

Lorena Suárez de Gordo [introduces herself]: Le agradezco al Señor . . . [Loren's voice continues in the background, speaking her story in Spanish as Annita speaks in English]

Annita: Lorena and her family live in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Her pastor often referred to Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Revive Our Hearts in his sermons, so Lorena decided to look it up on the web. She began to listen to Aviva Nuestros Corazones and found herself encouraged and confronted by God's Word. She says, "I'm thankful to the Lord, because I know He has a purpose for each woman, and as His daughters, to mold them into what He has called them to be."

A friend told Lorena about the True Woman conference that was coming to the Dominican Republic. "Ella me dice ¡Vamonos!" "Let's go!" she said. "Okei, sí, vamonos, y mis hijas . . ." Lorena's daughters wanted to go, too. They began to make plans.

But round trip tickets from Guadaquil to Santo Domingo can easily cost between $800–$1000 U.S. dollars, and money was tight for Lorena and her daughters. "Dice un proverbio que la mano del diligente prospera . . ." "There is a proverb," she says, "that the hand of the diligent makes rich." One daughter had recently graduated from high school, and she had a job. She was able to save up enough money to cover her plane ticket.

A second daughter was also able to find work, "providentially," as Lorena put it. But that still left Lorena and her third daughter. The youngest was going to stay home with her father. They began to raise money in whatever way they could. "Mi hija, la que tiene dieciseis años . . ." She said her sixteen-year-old daughter began to sell foods like "tortillas de verde," Ecuadoran green plantain patties stuffed with cheese, and "humitas," which are steamed fresh corn cakes, coffee, juice, fruit salad. "En un día vendimos agua en la calle . . ." "One day we sold water in the street," says Lorena. "It was really a beautiful experience."

Annita: [Lorena's daughter, Lorena, speaks in Spanish in background as Annita continues in English] "Tortillas, sandwiches . . ." Lorena's oldest daughter, also named Lorena, remembers those days well. "Recuerdo una ocasión que vendimos agua . . ." The day they sold water, it was in a place where there were a lot of people. "We noticed that there was a presidential parade about to go by," says the younger Lorena.

"Bueno, y vimos bastantes personas y teníamos el agua allí, y . . ." "We saw lots of people, and we had the water there, and so we picked up all the cases and we took them out in the street where everyone was passing. We started selling water. We put ourselves at risk because we were only women. I remember that my grandmother was helping, even though she didn't come to the conference. We positioned ourselves in the sun at the foot of a bridge, where everyone had to cross."

Between their business endeavors and the generosity of friends, family members, and a man in their church who lent them some money to be able to come, Lorena and her three oldest daughters were able to make it to Santo Domingo for the conference.

Twenty-year-old Lorena Gordo was very thankful to be there. "Verdad que me siento muy feliz al haber llegado . . . " "I feel very happy to have made it. My sisters and I . . . we didn't even realize we had arrived until we came to the church and we realized that we had reached the goal. Thanks to God!"

"And we feel very happy. And the sisters in our church couldn't come, and they said to us, 'Make the most of everything! Listen to everything. And please, come and tell us. Every message, every service, every workshop . . . listen to it, then come and tell us and teach us what they taught you there.'"

Cindy de Fuentes: No human being could have planned it the way it was. It was just from the first day seeing all those women getting into church, so anxious, so thirsty to hear the Word of God. It's like you could see the excitement in their faces. It's something that only the Lord can do, move all those hearts and give us that thirst and hunger for His Word being preached.

It was an amazing conference!

Nancy: What a joy it was to see God fill that church, not only with 2,300 women, but with 2,300 hearts that were "good soil," eager and responsive to the message, the truth.

One of the key things in the attitude, the spirit, with which those women came to the conference was the intense, fervent prayer that went on for weeks and months leading up to the conference. These were women who were already at the throne of God and were laying hold of God, pleading with Him to come and move and pour out His Spirit.

I'm so thankful for those women and many others, whose names we'll never know this side of heaven, and men as well who prayed, leading up to the conference. A group of men prayed throughout the conference for those women by name.

As I met with those prayer warriors, I knew that God was up to something in that place!

Annita: And God was. In the next exhibit on our tour, the conference begins with a poem.

Alejandra recited a poem by Blair Linne. She had translated the poem into Spanish last fall, and now she was sharing it at Mujer Verdadera. So this is Blair Linne from True Woman in the fall of 2014.

Blair Linne: "Before day separated from night, He is the true light. He was there since He is the I AM."

Annita: And here is Alejandra de Slemin delivering the same lines in Spanish.

Alejandra Cardoza de Slemin: [speaking in Spanish]

So as I was presenting that poem, it was very interesting . . . I wasn't necessarily nervous; I just felt a lot of weight on the words I was saying, because it was presenting the gospel, from beginning to end.

Blair: "Where Adam failed, the Second Adam completely conquered!"

Alejandra: [speaking same in Spanish]

In my heart my prayer for the women was, "Lord, help me to be that vessel at this very moment, where they can see that we need to understand how amazing the gospel is, and how amazing it is what Christ did."

Nancy: It about took my breath away! As the conference opened (in this case we did two full days—Friday and Saturday—from 9:00 to 6:00 each day), from the very outset on that Friday morning, when Pastor Fausto got up and welcomed the women from twenty-three different countries (he had said twenty-two, but realized later there was one he had missed), a slide appeared on the screen with flags of all the different countries. So you could see all of them there on that platform.

And then he began to name all the countries, one after another.

Fausto: Alemania [Germany], Argentina, Aruba, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estados Unidos de America, Guatemala, Honduras, Islas Caimanes [Cayman Islands], Italia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela y República Dominicana!

Nancy: As he did, the women from those countries had brought with them the flag from their own country. They would raise it up in the air and hold it up. It was like an opening ceremony of the Olympics. It was like there was this pent-up sense that, "We are so excited to be here!" You really had to be there!

Alejandra: As a Dominican, seeing twenty-three flags from other countries in our little country brought a lot of joy to my heart. It's a place where people mostly come to give, to bring things for the poor or for the needy, or to do some kind of service.

We've had lots of missionaries in the country. But having people come to actually learn (not necessarily from us, but from people who have come here to teach and to share the Word), and to have people from Germany, from Chile, from Argentina, from Colombia, Venezuela . . . you name it in Latin America . . . to praise God, to learn from each other, to learn from the Word together, it was amazing! God was the One that put all that together!

Laura González: The highlight for me was when the conference opened and all these women from all those parts of the world stood up with their flags. It was like a taste of heaven to see them all worshipping.

Nancy: I've been at a lot of women's conferences, we've hosted a lot of women's conferences, we've seen some precious moments of God moving and stirring in women's hearts. And it seems like after every conference we say, in some way, "This is better than any we ever had before!"

But it's hard for me to express the intensity of the hunger, the eagerness, the responsiveness of the women who were in that auditorium.

Patricia: My name is Patricia de Saladín, and I have been blessed to be here during this weekend in Santo Domingo at Mujer Verdadera 2015. I have seen the Spirit of God move throughout this auditorium through the speakers, through the singing of the praises. We have seen broken women, surrendered women. We have seen people come to life in Christ.

Something that stood out to me was I had the privilege of seeing a young woman come to the front, very broken, sobbing, crying. I could even see her tears on the floor. This morning when there was another call for women to repent or to confess their hypocrisy this same girl that yesterday who was so sad and crying, she came—full of joy—to help the others that were kneeling there.

That really touched my heart. The Spirit of God is not only making the wound, but at the same time healing the wound and giving joy in Christ to those who confess their sins.

Nancy: It was such a sweet thing to see those who had been set free to become ambassadors, missionaries, vehicles, vessels of freedom to help others experience true freedom in Christ. What a joy that was!

It was so special to see how God put the speaker team together: different personalities, different spiritual gifts, but one heart for Christ and His Word and His gospel.

[Nancy with translator speaking in Spanish after her] There are many things God has asked me to do over the years [Hay muchas cosas que El Señor . . .] and I keep saying, "How can this be?" And He keeps reminding me that it's not my power, but His.

[Nancy commenting on the conference] So to serve with Mary Kassian . . .

Mary Kassian [from conference]: Some of you are living with guilt and shame [Algunas de ustedes . . .], but through the blood of Jesus Christ [Pera por la sangre de Jesucristo . . .] He has paid it all! And thank God, everything is paid for! [applause and shouts from women]

Nancy: And Dannah Gresh . . .

Dannah [from conference]: And sisters, I had been hiding my sin for years! [Translator in Spanish.] I was really good at it, so good that my heart had stopped hurting and all I felt was hardness. But that day I realized the opposite of the fear of God is the fear of man.

Nancy: And Damaris Carbaugh . . .

Damaris Carbaugh: [She begins in Spanish, then speaks in English] Hi, my name is Damaris Carbaugh. It has been an absolute joy and an honor to be at Mujer Verdadera 2015 here in la Republica Dominicado in Santo Domingo! The highlight for me has been the intense hunger that I have seen in these women. They are so attentive and so hungry that it's disarming.

Nancy: And then the various individuals on the worship team . . .

Annita: Sarah and Jonathan Jerez helped lead the worship.

Sarah Jerez: We can really sense God's presence here and His Spirit is moving. It's been a joy to see the response of the women in worship.

Jonathan Jerez: I'm particularly excited the conference, just seeing women come together, especially from Latin America, especially in this movement of coming back to the cross, coming back to the gospel, and how that plays out in different areas of life.

It's exciting just to hear them join us and sing loud! [ladies singing earnestly]

Sarah: We've both been happy about the response to the new song as well.

Annita: They wrote a new song for True Woman.

Jonathan: We wanted the verses of the song to express the freedom and fullness and fruitfulness idea.

Sarah: What we wanted to do with the song was to call women to true womanhood. Without even using that phrase, the song describes what a true woman is. She's a woman who surrenders her guilt, her anxieties, her plans, her desires to the Lord.

[Sarah reads the English equivalent to the new song, while it is being sung in the background]:

My soul is thirsty for You;
Satisfy me today.
Lord, revive me!
I have to come to know Your great love.
I no longer live for myself;
I surrender to You.

Annita: Jonathan and Sarah were joined by worship leader, Josh Davis.

Josh Davis: I live in Atlanta, Georgia now, but some of my growing up years were spent in the Dominican Republic, so I've got Dominican inside me! It's been beautiful to watch so many different women from so many different countries come together. That's been one of the things that has delighted my heart.

I've been delighted to see the hunger and the thirst that they have for encountering Jesus and to know more of Him. It's not been hard to lead them in worship. They've been ready to sing and to offer to the Lord the fruit of the lips that praise His Name. It's been beautiful.

Nancy: And so to come to the Dominican Republic now for the second conference we've done there (but the first True Woman conference) and to see God bringing women from the nations (from almost every Latin American country) was an incredible joy and the fulfillment of a dream for me.

In fact, I couldn't help but think that perhaps my dad was sitting up in heaven watching this and feeling like perhaps dreams he had had and prayers he had prayed fifty years ago or more were now being fulfilled in some measure.

Woman: One thing I'm going to remember about the conference is how God uses His people, the church, in this case the women around me, to help me live a better Christian life.

Lisa: My name is Lisa. I'm from the Dominican Republic, and I'm eighteen years old. I learned from Damaris that we need to rely on the Word of God and read it constantly, and it's the most important thing we need to do in our lives, because it instructs us in the way we should go as young people.

Maria: Hi, my name is Maria. What I have learned from the conference is that I cannot have intimacy with God if I still have fear of man, and I cannot make my love to God grow if I'm still thinking about the impressions people around me have of me. I have to die [to self] to let God grow inside me.

Young woman: True Woman has been a great experience for me. The thing that has impacted me the most was what Dannah Gresh said about fearing God. I really believe that now I have the key to my freedom. I've always felt that I have to be perfect all the time, in front of my congregation, in front of my friends. I've realized that it's not about fearing men any more. It's about fearing God and getting His acceptance and His love, and I know that I can receive that through Christ.

Maria: True Woman has been an experience for me. From this True Woman Conference I learned that I really liked what Damaris says about taking your cross. Even though I've read that passage many times, I know that now I really have to put it in my heart and every day come in prayer and give my sins to God and ask Him to help me and take my cross and follow Him.

Woman: I must say, what I'll take out of this conference is that if I'm definitely looking for Him every day, intimacy. Everything that happens in my life is going to reflect His greatness, His power, His love. It's been a pleasure sharing this with you. Thank you, Revive Our Hearts.

Annita: As you can see, there is more to show you than we can examine completely on this brief tour. God poured out his kindness on us in ways that were immediately obvious and in ways, we trust, will continue to bear fruit in months and in years and in decades to come.

Leslie: We've been listening to our tour guide, Annamarie Sauter, explaining some highlights of the recent Mujer Verdadera conference. (That title sounds much prettier coming from Annita!) We're so grateful that Revive Our Hearts can be part of what God is doing around the world.

Nancy is back to tell you some of the ways God is making it possible.

Nancy: I want to say that the ministry in Latin America would not be possible apart from friends and listeners, like you, who have heard about this over the years, who have gotten excited about it, and who have said, "We want to have a part in launching this ministry. We want to see the message go forth into other nations of the world."

So many of our listeners have given generously, some sacrificially, to invest seed funds, start-up funds, in the launch of this Latin American ministry. And Revive Our Hearts is continuing to subsidize this Spanish outreach (the ministry of Aviva Nuestros Corazones), but it's a joy to see that God is raising up givers in Latin America!

In fact, when we first launched the Spanish ministry, the conventional wisdom was, "It will always be a mission effort. It will never fund itself. That's just the way it is," people told us. They said, "There's not really a culture of giving in Latin America and in some other parts of the world."

Well, I don't know if that's true or not, but I know that when God moves in peoples' hearts, "The people will volunteer freely in the day of Your Power . . ." (from Psalms). And the power of God is going forth in Latin America. It's changing lives! Those who are able to support the ministry, many of them are now stepping up and saying, "We want to have a part in supporting this ministry in our part of the world, our own continent, in our own language."

So I'm thankful that until they're able to be totally self-supporting, we are able to continue to subsidize that ministry . . . at a decreasing level . . . thanks to friends like you who have a vision for being part of that ministry.

Leslie: Do you want to help accelerate the movement of revival and biblical womanhood around the world? There's no better time to get involved than right now!

Revive Our Hearts usually sees a significant drop in donations in the summer months, and we really need to see the Lord provide here in May in order to keep cash flow healthy and not to have to make cuts to ministry outreaches.

Some friends of the ministry don't want to see this happen. So they are doubling the gift of every new supporter. That means, if you've never donated to Revive Our Hearts before, your gift will be matched—$100 becomes $200, $500 becomes $1,000.

So you have a significant opportunity to help accelerate the movement and watch the Lord call women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

Whether you're a new contributor or whether you've stood with us in the past, would you ask the Lord how He'd want you to get involved? Then call 1–800–569–5959 with your donation, or visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

Tomorrow, we'll hear some powerful testimonies of what God did in the lives of individual ladies who attended the True Woman Conference in the Dominican Republic. I understand that there was a very special moment at the end of the conference that you're going to tell us about, Annita?

Annita: Yes, it was awesome!

Leslie: That's great. I hope our audience can join us again tomorrow to hear that. I'm going to let you do something I've never let anyone else do in almost fourteen years of Revive Our Hearts. You get to do the "This is Revive Our Hearts" part tomorrow. Sound good?

Annita: You know, I already do it in Spanish a lot . . .

Leslie: I'm sure you do! Please join us for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries. How would I say that in Spanish, Annita?

Annita: Aviva Nuestros Corazones, con Nancy Leigh DeMoss, es una ministeria de Life Action Ministries.

Leslie: Beautiful!