Dame tus Ojos Quiero Ver (Give me your eyes I want to see)

Have you ever prayed for something and prayed so specifically that when God answers your prayers with the same attention to details you're almost shocked? That's exactly what he did with the Women's Conference this past week.

Orignally, I shared with you all that I thought that God was moving us to have the Women's Conference with another village. Well, as is very common things change constantly when you are here in Nicaragua.

One of the first days I spoke to Mario, who is our project manager/our hands and feet here in Nicaragua about how we were thinking about inviting another village instead of Bethel. He had a look like "oh no" on his face and told me that the women of Bethel had been planning on us having it with them. So, I instantly knew that there was know way that we could tell these ladies "no."

My friend Lindsay and I have been working on this conference literally for months. The title was "Mesa para Dos" or "Table for Two" based on Rev.3:20

"Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice

and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends."

The whole purpose was centered around telling these ladies how much God loves them and wants to spend intimate time with them. This was illustrated the first afternoon where I shared from John 12. Where God spent an itimate time with Lazarus' family. Especially with Mary when she poured out everything she at his feet. She did this in an act of worship and for his (Christ's) impending death, but we also see where she ran to his feet in John 11:32 when she just lost her brother. Mary ran to him out of her anquish and pain and then later to worship him. I love this picture in scripture about how God recieved her exactly how she was in both situations. He was exactly what she needed and he just wanted to spend time with her. He wants the same for us as well.

Thus the theme of this conference. The second day we showed the ladies how just like Mary they too can share intimate moments with God. He wants to speak to each of them personally. He is afterall a personal God! Day 2 then was teaching a method of how to read your Bible that Anne Graham Lotz teaches. There is nothing magical about this method and it is not dependent on someone else it simply shows you how to read your Bible to hear his voice..

Each day we started off with some ice breakers where the winner received a door prizes. It was some fun to see these womens have fun and enjoy being kids. Their favorites I would say were the balloon toss and musical chairs. They are ruthless when it comes to musical chairs haha.

The first day we had 35 women and we told them that the next afteroon we were going to share with them how they too can have those intimate moments with God daily...and to come back tomorrow, bring their Bible and if they didn't have a Bible bring a friend.

Day 2 we had 50 women PRAISE GOD!!! We started off again with some ice breakers and then with worship. This day we had the chairs around round tables and at each table we had them a pen, notebook, and laminated bookmark with a ribbon that explained the steps we were going to teach so they could take it home with them.

Also, just to show you how God's hand was on this Jazmina a young girl from Bethel lead worship for us and knew nothing on the topic that we'd be teaching. The song she lead the ladies in worship was "Dame tus Ojos" The whole song is asking God to give us his eyes so that we can see and to give us his words. In essence it was asking God to make us like him. It was incredible just how the Lord worked through that song. It was a great theme song for the time we had with these ladies.

After worship Lindsay started to share the 3-Questions we call it from time to time. It's reading God's Word, looking for lessons and then taking those lessons and making applications from them. She used 1 Samuel 3 where the Lord speaks to Samuel. We then after explaining the method gave them Mark 6:30-35 to try on their own. We had tables set up this day so the women were working with each other digging through God's word together. Talk about amazing.

We circled the room asking if anyone had any questions, but these women GOT IT! It was incredible to see the lessons that they came up with and how quickly they did it. There were several women who couldn't read or write, but we told me hey no problem you can do this in your mind you don't have to write anything. After we circled around for couple minutes we went around the room and got the women to stand up and share their facts, lessons and applications. I'm telling you the whole 2 days was like I was physically present, but it was like I was standing back and watching God work in the hearts of these women. You could see the hunger for the Word in their eyes. It was incredible...gets me excited just thinking about it again!

As we were wrapping it up we told the ladies "know you are the teachers....you don't even need me and Lindsay...now that we've passed on to you what has been given to us you can pass it on to others." (2 Tim. 2:2)

We were about to pray and then a lady stood up and asked if she could come up and share something. This was the pastor of Bethel's wife (I was totally floored by this) she started thanking me and Lindsay for teaching them this and then said "this is the way we need to read the Bible...I've never read my Bible like this before." After she sat down another lady came up and said "I wish I would of came yesterday, because I obviously missed a blessing due to being lazy. But today I just couldn't not come and I'm so glad I did!"

God is moving people! It's amazing what happens when I got out of the way and let God do all the work. His word is ALIVE and POWERFUL! (Hebrews 4:12) Thank you all for your prayers! I'll be updating more soon : )

Here is a video of the women worshiping to the song "Dame Tus Ojos" that I mentioned earlier.