Beauty for Ashes pt.2 The First Event

Tuesday, February 2nd was our first Beauty for Ashes event. We decorated the church with roses, fairie lights, and Bible verse posters. My team spent a lot of time praying over the events knowing this was going to be important, which makes it an obvious target for the enemy. We even had people from other teams on our squad praying, and many people at home were praying, too.

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As the time to start the event approached, we noticed that only three women had arrived. My heart sank. We had invited around forty women, and only three came? I was ready to move forward with the evening anyway because God would use this to impact even those three.

Then a few of my teammates decided to walk through the community knocking on doors and reminding women to come. When they got back to the church we counted and had almost thirty women waiting to start! It was a good reminder that our timeline is not God’s and not to doubt the calling even if it doesn’t look how we thought it would.

The first night was focused on telling the women about their worth and value. We so easily look to education, success, material things, or other people to find our value, but that leaves us empty.

On my first Race the Lord taught me that my value and worth come from him, and him alone. That may seem like an obvious thing, but for someone who struggled to feel like I was worthy of love or a valuable part of God’s kingdom, it was huge. And God reminded me of that when I was praying. He had walked me through that so I can now help other people find their identity and value in the Lord.

Each of the women from my team had the opportunity to teach, share a story, or do an activity. I felt like a proud mom watching these wonderful women of God tackle something that can be scary with boldness and excitement. We didn’t even have to worry about the language barrier! 

Our hosts have a friend who was willing to be our translator, and she was phenomenal! Most of us had never spoken with a translator before, but she made it seem so easy. It is empowering knowing you can speak freely knowing someone is translating so you don’t have to.

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After the speaking portion of the evening, we worshiped together, then the women ate, talked, and laughed with each other. The night was a huge success. Two Guatemalan young ladies we have been interacting with a lot loved it so much that they wanted to be involved in the next one!

God was moving through the whole event, and we were blown away by the response. It made planning for the next week even more exciting then the first. I’m glad this team responds willingly to the call of the Lord, no matter the direction. It seemed daunting in the beginning, but we had nothing to worry about. God wanted willing servants to love these women like he does, and we did just that. All the glory to God!