Tomorrow is the final day of training in Uganda! Our South Sudanese sisters have been so teachable and really embraced the training. Both Sarah Peters and Sarah Tountas have done a fantastic job teaching and the African ladies have grown quite fond of them (the women have nicknamed them Tiny Sarah and Mama Sarah – both terms of love and respect). Every one of the African women developed a business plan based on the Microenterprise Training. We spent two hours listening to their plans, which all included a focus on sharing the Gospel and helping the poor. It was an astounding and humbling experience since they are quite poor themselves – some of them even live in refugee camps. Biblical leadership principles came to life as they discussed how God’s word applies to their everyday situations. They seemed to treasure every moment together with one another and with us.

Please pray:

1. Tomorrow evening we will drive to the refugee camp and ministering to women there. Please pray for the 8-hour road trip, for safety, joy in the journey, and that God will give us eyes to see what he sees.
2. That God would provide the seed that the Sudanese women need to start or grow their businesses to care for even more vulnerable children and orphans in their distress.
3. That the women would be confident in using and teaching all the new skills they have.

Our Women in the Window Team has safely arrived in Uganda!  Below is an update from the team of Kim Kerr, Sarah Tountas, and Sarah Peters.

Our day started bright and early at 7:30 a.m. with devotions focused on the Good Shepherd in the Gospel of John. We just completed our first full day of training at 9:30 p.m!  Each moment with these 15 key Sudanese women leaders has been fruitful. The women consider it quite an honor to receive this WiW training. They traveled from various places in war-torn South Sudan, refugee camps, and cities. They received spiritual and sound business principles and practices with great enthusiasm. They are very eager to learn and apply Inductive Bible study tools and leadership skills as well.

Their hearts are so heavy with the daily unthinkable burdens of poverty and war. Despite all of the trauma, we are amazed at how trusting they are and how open their hearts are.

Please pray:

• For us all, Africans and Americans, to experience the transformation and refreshment as we gather together through the remaining four days of training.
• For our health and stamina as we are still catching up with the seven-hour time difference.
• That our words would be clearly articulated to and understood by our sisters here and that the Holy Spirit would be at work in their hearts.
• That our Sudanese brothers and sisters would be confident and empowered that they are the ones best-equipped to share the Gospel with the unreached here and wherever the Lord takes them.

Joyfully His,
Sarah, Sarah, and Kim

The women approached the tomb in the twilight of Resurrection morning passionately seeking a way to honor the Lord Jesus with one final act of worship and love. They came to anoint His body for burial. Perplexed and deeply troubled, they asked themselves, “who will roll away the stone?” The Bible says that the stone, which was quite large and certainly too heavy for them to move, was already rolled away and the tomb was empty. Their awe and wonder continued as they were greeted by the angel of the Lord, saying, “Fear not, for I know. . .”  The angel, God’s messenger, brought an amazing revelation to these faithful women: He knows!

They came to the tomb of Christ but found it empty for Jesus had risen! They came to offer worship and left with hearts filled with hope and wonder – and a commission to go and tell the Good News.  The stone has been rolled away – no longer guarding the dead – now a trophy and triumph of Life!

Are you facing a “stone” that seems impenetrable? Are there barriers in your path that are too heavy, too large and too difficult to face on your own? Each of us has received this very same good news that came to the women on Easter morning – He lives! He knows! And He has removed the stone!

As I write this good news, I am preparing to travel with our Women in the Window International team to minister among the women from Sudan who are forced to live as refugees in neighboring nations. Their faith is undaunted as like these holy women of old, they approach the barriers in their life with unwavering devotion to Jesus our Lord and Savior! Per their request, we will provide Leadership and Microenterprise training tools that are transformational and reproducible in their context and culture. We are confident that our training will offer them new ways to provide an income and better ways to serve as leaders. But we are even more confident that we will receive fresh revelation that He is alive, He has removed the stone, and He knows as we learn so much from these triumphant women of God!

Praise God with us for the way Christ was exalted and that He ministered to all present at our recent Dignity and Design International Fashion Show and Silent Auction. 230 women and men attended, more than $70,000 was given already, and 24 volunteers were enlisted so far!

Please pray for these upcoming trips and trainings in April, May, and June:

April – WiW team departs for Uganda this Friday! 
1. Sarah Tountas, Sarah Peters and Kim Kerr will lead a Microenterprise and Leadership Training in Uganda for women from Sudan, April 6-17th. They will also spend time in the refugee camp ministering to the women leaders who have been forced to live in dire circumstances as victims of war, persecution, and oppression. Many are widows; have lost family members to death and torture, including their children. Pray for their safety, health, unity, and for the anointing of the Holy Spirit to know how to “sustain the weary with the Word.” Isaiah 50:4

May
1. Trauma Healing Training for North African women

June
1. Spiritual formation retreat and training for Middle Eastern and North African ministry leaders
2. Health training for Syrian women working among their own people living as refugees in the Middle East.

Our Women in the Window team is back from the Bronx, one of the boroughs in New York City, where we completed three full days of microenterprise training for Christian West African women from a Muslim background. Many of these West African women are already taking steps toward starting their own businesses which include: making and selling African jewelry, designing and making African & European style clothing, and childcare services.

One of the women shared she had previously attended a 3-month business training, but did not feel a sense of fulfillment following that training. After the second day of our WiW training, she told us that she realized the missing piece of the previous training was that it did not include biblical teaching that explained how God uses women in business to advance His kingdom work. Another participant reported that her husband had shared business advice with her in the past, but she ignored it. After the first day of our training she spoke with him and expressed that she now realized that they can work together in both business and ministry.

Some of the African women and women staff from our ministry partner, Global Gates, plan to reproduce these microenterprise lessons and then train other women with great influence among their own people group. These women all live in gateway cities here in America but are part of unreached people groups from many nations. Each of the women who received our training presented their own business plans with great enthusiasm.

As in all our Women in the Window trainings, we completed our Inductive Bible study of a woman in the Bible. The women participants presented their personal applications through skits of timeless truths discovered by studying Priscilla in our WIW Inductive Study. Priscilla and Aquila are noted as a husband and wife team who had successful businesses, were church planters and “risked their necks” for the sake of the Gospel! (See Romans 16:4)

Thank you all for your prayers for team unity, safety, logistics, teaching of the curriculum, translation, and God bringing the women He wanted to this training. We believe He answered all our prayers abundantly. Please continue to pray that this microenterprise training does indeed get multiplied so it can positively affect women, their families, and their communities and nations.

“I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.”                            Hosea 11:4 ESV

Women are often horribly treated simply because they are women. The religions and cultural norms of many nations and people groups include barbaric treatment of women and girls as rites of passage. They include the taking of innocent lives of little girls — both preborn and in infancy. In some cases, they include the taking of women’s lives in adulthood, in the name of honor. But in contrast, God promises to ease this yoke of bondage, and lift these burdens of despair, exchanging their sorrow for joy, kindness and even love both now and forevermore.

With the recent passing of Billy Graham, it is a good time to reflect on his legacy and impact on the ministry of Women in the Window International. In 1974 Billy Graham was part of the original core group of Lausanne Global Evangelism that envisioned a comprehensive view of evangelism that combines what we do with what we say as Christians. He also saw the value of training indigenous Christian ministry leaders—both men AND women—to take the Gospel to their own people group, their own tribe, and their own nation. In 2010, I had the privilege of attending the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism held in South Africa — this time instead of dozens of Western men, there were thousands, more than 5,000 from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And, a third of us were women! Together we celebrate the reality that God has and is pouring out His Holy Spirit on both sons and daughters and that the release of His Holy Spirit includes a level of responsibility to embrace His call to tell the Good News, set the captives free, and obey Him fully not only with our words, but so much more with our actions.

Women in the Window continues to serve as part of the Lausanne Global Evangelism community—loving, living and serving through the Gospel with our words and actions!

Please join us in prayer for the following ways that we are doing just that:

• March | NYC with West African women and other Global Gates staff and volunteers
• April | Uganda with
• May |  France with North African women leaders
• June | Spain with Latino women leaders living and working throughout North Africa & the Middle East and the “stan” nations
• June | The Middle East with Syrian women refugees
• July | Lakota Sioux Native American women

Praise God that Judy arrived safely back home! Please pray for a smooth transition back home.

And join us for Dignity and Design, WiW’s Fourth Annual Spring Luncheon and International Fashion Show: Tuesday, March 13^th at the Beach Club, in Palm Beach. Click here for more info.