Hope (name changed) is one of our leaders who completed the three year training this week. Hope is a pastor’s wife in the city, but she and her husband have been travelling to the mountains to reach the ethnic people groups for years. Hope had a vision to reach the women in the unreached people groups. In the last three years of our training, she started with a group of 38 leaders in her home for 10 days every six months, coming from all over the mountains. Those leaders are now training many groups of 50 women and many groups have men too. This was her commissioning testimony.
I was a believer and a leader for several years in ministry with my husband. Since 1996 I have had a burden for the ethnic minorities in the mountains, especially the women. I would go with my husband to meet with the men leaders for training and discipling, but we never had time with the women. Most of the church in the mountains is women. My heart was heavy for them. They work so hard in the fields, have many children to care for and are very poor. They are so tired and with no joy. They don’t see themselves as God sees them, and they don’t know they have a purpose beyond their work in the fields. I wanted to help them, but didn’t know how. I prayed for years for a way to teach them and for materials to help them. There was nothing for women, nothing to help these people understand who God is and to know His word in their own languages.
Then I was invited to meet Liz. My friend and I prayed together for 14 years for the women in the mountains. When we talked with Liz we believed the Love UnVeiled teaching was what we needed for the women.
The first thing that happened was changes in my own life. I realized I had so many bondages and did not know God intimately. I wasn’t coming to Him every day, dependent on Him. I was depending on my own strength. My life began to change as I grew deeper in an intimate relationship with Jesus. Now I know that only God can help me to live in the power of His Spirit. Only God’s word can help me do what He has called me to do. There are many temptations. Only the Holy Spirit and God’s word can help me overcome and know the truth that sets us free. I thank God so much for the transformation He has done in me.
When I was transformed I was so full, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I needed to bring it to others. I began by inviting representatives from different ethnic groups to a training. We had 28 came to the first workshop I taught. They were amazingly transformed, healed and set free from many bondages through the word of God. When they left they took the LUV training back to their villages and began teaching other groups of women. Men began to come too. Many, many people began to be set free from the deceit of the enemy, and bondages of evil and religious spirits. Many are now leading other groups and teaching God’s word. Some groups are over 50 people. They have finished 5 workshops now and are teaching many others all over the mountains and in different provinces. Ethnic people groups are being set free, coming to Jesus and their churches are growing.
I pray that all of us here in our celebration today will be united with one another. We are bound with the love of Jesus so we should not care about the different ethnic groups or our differences. We are united in His love. God will raise us up to shine His light through us and bring His love to many other ethnic groups in other provinces, and also to people in the cities.
Our need is for prayer to reach the thousands more who are waiting to be set free. We have manuals and flash cards translated in “H” and some in “X” languages. Now we are starting the “S” language. We need more manuals printed and translated in all these languages. We need more than 17,000 additional manuals and flash cards for the unreached peoples in their languages. The leaders are waiting and asking for more manuals to teach others God’s word.”
Five ethnic minority Butterfly leaders from Hope’s discipleship training (men and women) came to the Commissioning to support Hope. They traveled over 12 hours to be with us. They have all completed five LUV workshops with Hope and are training others in different churches and provinces. One lady has 18 groups, another has 23 groups! Each group is about 50 people. One of the men reported his whole church went through Workshop One in May and since that time the church has doubled from 100 to 200.
One lady shared “when we went to train in “X” province, 150 people attended the training (5 days). We have many groups we are discipling now. We are very zealous, passionate to share this teaching with others. We came today because there are many things we want to share with you, the things we have experienced from God and about what God is doing through this teaching. That is why we came today.
–Liz