The highlight of September was, by far, holding our first National Ladies’ Training Conference, and God truly worked in so many ways! It would take too long to list every little thing that God did, but I want to give some of the main ones.
Before the conference even began, God was working. We wanted to give a gift to each of the pastors’ wives to encourage them. God had already provided a donation of new study Bibles for them. Good quality Bibles can be difficult to find here and are always very expensive. Many of our ladies do not even have their own Bible but have only have one Bible to share between the family, so these Bibles would be a gift that these ladies would truly treasure. However, the date for these Bibles arriving in Nigeria kept getting delayed again and again. We thank God that the Bibles arrived just a few days before the conference began!
There were over 170 ladies in attendance, with 35 pastors’ wives present. We thank God that so many were willing to travel to come. Our special speaker from the U.S., Mrs. Amber Bosje, truly connected with the ladies. She was able to teach on things like having a Christian marriage, raising Godly children, and having a Godly home, training and teaching that many of them had never had tailored to them specifically as ladies before. God used Mrs. Bosje’s teaching, and the response from the ladies during the conference was truly amazing. You could visibly see the spirit of the ladies become more encouraged as the conference continued. I’ve even had men coming to me saying that they have never seen a spirit like that among our ladies and that they have already seen a difference in their homes.
After the last session of the conference, I made sure that I was around to talk with and thank the ladies who attended. I asked one lady how the conference was, and a pastor’s wife yelled from across the room, “It was EXCELLENT!!” It was surprising to me, since I knew this particular pastor’s wife, and I had never heard her ever raise her voice like that at anything. The fact that she felt so encouraged that she wanted to shout about it was such an encouragement to us.
Thank you so much for praying. God answered your prayers in a great way. Please continue to pray as we work to do this kind of conference annually and in different parts of Nigeria.
That all the world may know,
Caleb Christiansen
Pastors’ wives with their new study Bibles