I have loved you with an everlasting love, with my loving kindness I will draw you. I will rebuild you and you will be rebuilt. Jeremiah 31:3-4
My word for this year was “hope.” But it took only three days into the New Year to be reminded that hope requires endurance.
Hope is expecting something that you cannot see when everything that you can see tells you the opposite. On January 4th I heard a Christian speaker say “we are butterflies who need to be eagles.” It was prophetic. The first 5 months of the year I’ve experienced intense challenges in every area of my life: ministry, family, personal and health. I have certainly felt like a butterfly facing storms that require the power found only in eagles’ wings – power to fly higher with greater hope, greater faith, greater wisdom and greater endurance. I know I am not alone! In these days of intensified spiritual warfare we all have need of endurance to press on to do what God has called us to do!
My passion grows daily to help women experience freedom – freedom to be who God made them to be, so they will fulfill His purpose to multiply His glory and bring the fragrance of Jesus to those in bondage.
Speaking to women at a recent Let’s Get Real Conference I had the impression the Holy Spirit was saying, “I am not here to give a makeover but a break-over.” I believe God is rebuilding His people to equip and empower us for ministry and to endure through the storms so many are facing now, and for the raging storms that are to come.
It’s been challenging to compose this much overdue update because as I sorted through all my notes about the many events, and happenings from our Butterfly Leaders around the world I realized it would be impossible to convey the countless stories of how God is transforming, equipping and empowering numerous incredible women to serve Him. Women who are being broken and rebuilt. Here is a glimpse into some of what God is doing through LUV and these incredible Butterflies …
Tanya, South Florida Jail Ministry: The Holy Spirit is using Tanya powerfully to transform women’s lives in this jail. So much so that the Sheriff has nominated her for a 3 year grant for Tanya to continue teaching Love UnVeiled in the jail!
Tanya led a second group of women through 12 weeks of Love UnVeiled. These were a few of their testimonies after graduation:
- This program is incredibly inspiring and comforting. It has given me a fresh new outlook on my life, transforming anger, frustration and depression into love, patience and joy. I now possess a new found confidence in God’s enduring words that reveal the limitless and lasting degree of His love.
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When I first started the class I was very hurt, and looking for love in all the wrong places. Now I know that I was stuck in a dark place and crawling around as a caterpillar. I have been working on myself and sensing when the Holy Spirit is trying to speak to me or through me. Because I learned that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. I do not have to be captive in the chains of my bondage anymore. Christ has set me free and I am learning how to enjoy that freedom. As I keep in the word, and pray for guidance and discernment, I will be more like a butterfly spreading the fragrance of the Lord. Like Ms. Tanya told us: Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come!
- Isaiah 41:13 says, “For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not I will help you.” Right before I got arrested I remember crying out one night for God to just help me, to just make the chaos that was my life stop. And while my 1st choice for a stopping place isn’t county jail, I wouldn’t have changed this experience for anything. While I have been a believer for many years, I most definitely haven’t been a follower of Christ recently because I thought I could do everything in my own strength. This time in jail, because of Ms. Tanya & the Love UnVeiled class, it has blessed me and changed my life irrevocably. Through Tanya’s unwavering dedication and this amazing curriculum I have been able to gain freedom by His love and forgiveness, and peace I had only heard about. While my immediate circumstances haven’t changed, and I don’t know what the outcome will be, I am grateful for every moment I have spent here. God has turned my trouble into victory and in Him I find my rest. Thank you Ms. Tanya for teaching, and Ms. Dickson for creating this curriculum, it has been a life changing and saving experience.
This April I led a new group of leaders through Workshop One. This is our sixth leaders’ group training in Orlando. All of these women come from Central Florida. They are women who have been in ministry for many years and came to be equipped and empowered for ministry to women.
Once again the Holy Spirit began rebuilding! Not a “makeover” but a “break over.” He opened their understanding to allow the scriptures and principles they have known in their heads for many years to come alive by the Holy Spirit bringing revelation and understanding to their hearts.
Testimonies from April Orlando Workshop One:
- It was life changing!
- I was saved 30 years and went straight from salvation to service. No-one told me about intimate relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit which bring freedom. This is the first time I have understood how much He loves me!
- May God continue His work of using every part of who we are and every circumstance we go through to be redeemed and transformed for His Glory! Reclaiming the salty marshes in my life and asking Him to let the cleansing river flow through every part of me. Thanks for your prayers for me, some difficult circumstances have not changed but freedom and peace has increased!!!
Brazilian butterflies find their wings in Germany! Marli, our butterfly leader in Brazil spread her wings and flew to Germany this month where she started a new butterfly group with Brazilians living in Munich. She met up with Bridget our Orlando butterfly who moved to Munich last September. Together they are spreading the fragrance of Jesus in Germany.
Today Marli has arrived in Orlando to join the rest of the Butterfly leaders in her training group from Orlando and Moldova for their fourth leaders’ workshop.
Our leader in Indi@ held refresher workshop to encourage our Indi@cbutterflies who I had the privilege of meeting with for 4 years. She taught on Workshop 6, the Bride which had a deeply profound effect on the women. They have never considered that we the church are the Bride of Christ waiting on our Bridegroom. Most of them have never experienced a wedding in the way a bride deserves, or have a husband who rejoices over them with singing. It is so important that we encourage, equip and empower these women in the word of truth and the power of the Holy Spirit as the darkness gets greater in Indi@with increasing abuse against women, and escalating persecution against believers.
Let’s Get Real – last month 75 women came to experience The Divine Exchange at our women’s conference at Avalon Church. It was another powerful time to experience the Holy Spirit releasing women from past wounds and lies as they exchanged the lies for truth, the brokenness for healing and the bondage for freedom in their lives. The altar was filled with women responding to the invitation desperate for the Holy Spirit to heal, and fall afresh filling us with His power and His love.
Poland Jagoda completed Workshop 6 with the first group she started in 2014. Many of these leaders are now making disciples among women, many of them in the Catholic Church in three different cities. Please pray the Holy Spirit will continue to empower these women to bring freedom and truth to women in Poland – a critical country in Europe at this time.
Prayer Needs:
- This weekend’s Workshop Level 4 – for leaders from Brazil, Moldova, and Central and S Florida – Liz (Friday, 5/19 – Monday, 5/22)
- Orlando area Quarterly Butterfly gathering – Liz – (Saturday, 6/3)
- Tanya – Jail ministry …ongoing, pray for funding
- Karen leading group for Moms with children of special needs.
- Shelly starting new weekly group in Avalon June 7th
- Safety and wisdom for our butterflies in Indi@and Asia.
- Visas for Indi@/Asia Coming to Global Conference, October
- Pray God will provide financially for all we need, especially October conference.
- My trip back home to the UK Leaving on 6/5
–-Liz