The world didn’t change on August 19, 2007. True to the ebbtide of 24 hours, the sun rose near dawn, set at dusk. One hour outside of Indianapolis, Indiana, the air was stifling at midday, and by nightfall, a day had come and gone with things pretty much the same as the day before.
But the eighteen women who gathered at King’s Ranch for the first Global Women’s Forum would never be the same.
“Here in North America, women live in freedom,” said Elise Vestal, chairwoman of the the Forum, a group of women advocating the world’s most suffering and marginalized regions. “We’re educated, we have access to what we need. How incredible it would be for women like us to band together to bring hope and healing to women and children who have no voice.”
Beginning with an informal gathering and then moving toward in-depth discussions of the world’s most marginalized regions, the partipants explored not only the injustice and suffering across the globe, but began to imagine ways where their lives could make a difference.
“Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife, Coretta Scott King, spoke boldly of oppression to women of her day,” commented Vestal. “She encouraged women to make a difference despite the forces working against them. Let us join with her in saying, ‘Women, if the soul of the nations is to be saved I believe you must become its soul. You must speak out against the evils of our time as you see them.'”
At the close of the gathering, the women of the new Global Women’s Forum didn’t have a complete plan of action in hand. But they did have the assurance that God is leading them to be workers in the world who labor to inaugurate the good news of the Kingdom. This, they were sure, would happen as they championed and empowered the last and least in the world’s most suffering places.
“God is God of all nations,” mused Elise at the end of the Forum. “He loves the world, and if we love love Him, working together to help end human suffering where we can is indeed part of Jesus’ good news.”
If this is your desire please join us. We envision much trust to come from this gathering and foresee this union developing into an annual national gathering with women meeting from coast to coast. You will be a part of the protocol and initiatives to see fulfillment of this movement. Contact us for more information.
(SOURCE: ServLife News – August 2007)