Women are so influential.
In my squad of 51 Racers, 44 are women. In the history of the World Race, the gender ratio always favors females over males on a squad. In church circles the same thing happens. In a recent case for me, my college campus ministry had about 15 girls that would regularly come every week and maybe 3 men if we were lucky. I know its a different picture in other churches, such as my young adult group at my church back home, where there is a more of a balance in ratio between the sexes, which is a relief knowing there are active men in the church congregation.
I find it so cool how God wired women to have so much influence, no matter where they go. Satan knows this too. That’s why he targeted Eve in the Garden of Eden. He knew that by getting to Eve, he would ultimately get to Adam through her.
Satan still targets women in so many different ways around the world!
So many girls I know, whether back home or on the World Race, struggle with comparison. They don’t believe that their body, their personality, and the talents and gifts God has given them are good enough.
They struggle with irrational fears, shame from sin, and emotional scars from abuse.
In India, girls and women are oppressed just because of biology and cultural traditions. Its demonic how the enemy attacks a group of women, through their own society, by pressuring them to kill their baby girls or sell their daughters. I got to see that firsthand with the women and children I met in the villages and at an after school program. But I also got the opportunity to see what women and children in India thriving on love, support, and encouragement could look like! I think the women of India are collectively the most resilient, strongest women I’ve ever met.
Like the organization in India taught their girls in the after school program, all women are beautiful, strong, and brave. Women all over the world should, no, need to, take that to heart. Because there is an enemy out there that is getting them to believe they are ugly, weak, and not enough.
In Nepal, I got to meet young women that believe they aren’t good enough to receive a proper education to get a proper job, which causes them to resort to selling themselves for sex. They don’t see the harm in getting paid to dance all night on stage and then going home with a man they met in the club. Some are happy with that life because no one has ever loved them enough to tell them there’s something, or Someone, out there waiting for them. They love eyes on their curves, the attention their outfits and exposed skin bring them. They want to feel wanted. Don’t we all?! I know all women fall into this trap. These girls as well as women all over the world don’t know there are people of the opposite sex out there that could value them for their thoughts, their laugh, their brain, their talents, their whole being. It’s not their fault that they don’t know. It’s not their fault that no one has told them.
But some of them want to get out.
We got the opportunity to tell the ones searching for freedom that there is another way. There is freedom. There is pure Love out there.
God swung open the doors and my group was able to collect two girls’ phone numbers! We gave them to the organization we were partnering with that is connected to about 50 other organizations in the Kathmandu valley. They have training schools, resources, beds, and jobs for women that want to be truly independent. They have been contacted by phone and now its up to them to take that first step towards freedom!
God’s sovereignty and timing is so perfect, guys.
Example: The night before we went out to talk to these women, the 44 girls on my squad had our own personal night of freedom called Stand Up For Your Sister. What this is is a anonymous survey that hits on a wide range of issues that women face. Then they’re collected and redistributed so you don’t know whose survey you have. Each question is read out loud and you stand up for the “yes” answers on your new survey. The purpose of this exercise is to shed light on topics that aren’t normally talked about in Christian circles and show you that you are not alone. The mood was very somber as statements like these were read aloud:
“Have you ever made yourself throw up on purpose?”
“Have you ever been sexually assaulted by an acquaintance?”
“Have you ever struggled with pornography or erotic literature?”
Yeah, we went there. And it sparked a two and a half hour confession time where we owned our stories and shared with our sisters. And in that, freedom was palpable. “Shame dies when stories are told in safe places.” Spiritual chains were shattered off our wrists and ankles and so much light shone into dark corners of people’s spirits where no light had ever been able to reach before.
God put it on a lot of people’s hearts the next morning to address this to the squad and this is for you, the reader, too:
Freedom isn’t a one time thing but something we continue to walk in and shed light on. We have to tell the darkness that it no longer has jurisdiction over that part of our story. We do this by not running back and hiding. Being in community where vulnerability and accountability can continue to take place is how we let God redeem those “ugly” things so that they can become the launching pad for other people’s freedom. If you’re on step 10 of freedom and healing, you can help someone that’s on step 1 or 5. If you’re on step 2, reaching out to someone on step 18 for prayer, accountability, advice, etc is so helpful and important! It’s what the true Body of Christ is here for.
We were walking in this newfound freedom and revelation so much the next morning that one of our own guys on the squad had to speak up and tell us that he had no idea what happened to us the night before but we were acting like completely different women and to keep it up!
This freedom is available to everyone! Those chains of sin, shame, guilt, fear, bitterness, failure, whatever it is for you, reader, don’t have to weigh you down anymore! You receive healing by confessing not just to God but to someone else. In James 5:16 it says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
This is what women in India and Nepal have waiting for them.
Physical freedom.
Emotional freedom.
Spiritual freedom.
Please pray with me and don’t ever stop that women all over the world would seek and find freedom in Jesus Christ when they seek with all their heart.
