Night and Day, Women's Events Build Faith

The South Florida Church women connected with friends, family, co-workers and "someone I just met" during regional women's events, April 12 and 13. Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward designed unique programs, themes, and entertainment - all to reach the hearts of women and share the good news of the gospel.

Palm Beach focused on finding "the pearl of great price." Upon registering, each woman received a pearl to wear on her wrist, a reminder to pray that many souls would be found! 320 attended Friday night, a tribute "to the power of unity and that two (or more) are better than one," remarked Geri Laing.

By faith, Miami-Dade expected 400, so their faith was off the chain when 500 women attended and learned that true freedom is only found in a relationship with God! Planning, praying, organizing and orchestrating the women's day unified sisters throughout the county as ONE region.

Broward's theme "brought in some people who've never ever stepped foot in a church before," said ministry leader Amy Overstreet. The multi-generational crowd fellowshipped, competed for door prizes and posed in photo booths. From middle schoolers to grandmothers, women found inspiration in the personal testimonies and Barbara Porter's message.

Young and Courageous, the Power of an Adventurous Life

Today at work, I found out that one of the homeless boys who we work with got drunk last night and killed another. I spent an hour listening to one of the women I work with share her story of abuse and her struggle with wondering if she will be able to financially support her two young daughters if she leaves her abuser. I then comforted that woman’s friend as she told me that she sees her teenage son entering a pattern of alcoholism and fears that he will one day be the abuser to another woman and their children. I ran into another one of the women I work with who told me that she found a dead baby in the trash last night as she was sweeping the streets.

Unfortunately, this is not an atypical day for me working with families who live and work on the streets of La Paz, Bolivia. I came to La Paz, a recent college graduate with my degrees in Social Work and Global Health, expecting to see immense physical poverty. When my plane touched down in this two-mile high city in the second poorest country in the hemisphere, I quickly saw that the poverty here extends far beyond what initially meets the eye.

Shame, abuse, loneliness, insecurity, and distrust plague the lives of many of the beautiful families that I work with. The emotional and spiritual poverty that they face is overwhelming. Men line the streets to shoeshine is masks because they are too ashamed to be seen making their living in a way that is met by so much discrimination. Old women sit on corners prostituting themselves because they believe that they have no other way to provide for their children and grandchildren. Eighty percent of the women I work have suffered from physical and sexual abuse. Many children grow up alone because their parents need to work twelve hours just to be able to put food in their mouths and a roof over their heads.

While my job here is to help families save money to work their way out of poverty, I see my role as much more than just to coordinate services for them and to make sure that they have goals and are saving. My job is to listen to the secrets they have fearfully hidden for years, to tell them and their children how beautiful and special and important they are, to kiss them and hug them and to make them laugh, to advocate for them when they feel as if no one else in the world is there, to spend weekends at their houses being a part of their lives, and to love them as much as possible in whatever crazy and imperfect way I can. My job is to be as much like Jesus as I possibly can. I know well that what they need is not me, but to see God through me. They need to see and know God, their all-powerful Maker and their Father who loves them more than life.

In John 3:30, it says, “He must become greater; I must become less.” In Psalm 31:16, it says, “Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.” As I venture into the streets everyday, unsure what will come my way, these scriptures are the prayers that are written on my heart. That as I dance or pray or play or cry, that people will not see me, but God in me. I pray that I can know his face so that mine can be a reflection of his. I pray that I can better understand his unfailing love so that I can better share his unfailing love. I pray that the families I work with can know my God, the God who has stooped down and rescued me, the God who carries me and calls me by name.

Next month I will leave La Paz, and move to New York City to pursue my Masters in International Social Work in a city that feels a world away. Even though I will be with students and social workers instead of cholitas and children, I know that shame, abuse, loneliness, insecurity, and distrust will still surround me. The truth is that spiritual poverty is an epidemic that is not limited to any one country or culture. The people who I will meet in New York City may live lives that are far removed from the lives of my families in La Paz, but they will still need to be told how special and important they are, to be listened to without judgment, and to be loved and made laugh. Everyone needs Jesus just the same: New Yorkers, Bolivians, the rich, the poor, social workers, prostitutes, the happy, the sad: everyone.

We are each planted in different cities, countries, jobs, and situations, but we are all needed in this spiritual battle. As disciples, we all share the same blessing. We have the great gift of being able to show Jesus to those around us through our hearts, our faces, our words, our actions, our relationships, our lives. And we each share the same promise in Proverbs 11:25: “He who refreshes other will himself be refreshed.”

As it says in 2 Corinthians 9:15: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”

With love from Bolivia,
Jenny