Awh, last week with the women of Threads of Hope was so completely and totally God. The latter part of the week was better than the start and I had a new perspective. (Suddenly, “I got a new attituuuuuudeee” by Patti LaBelle played in my head) Anyways, I led two Bible studies with two different groups of women. At Threads, we have women in training, learning how to sew and putting in hours in order to graduate to an employee, and we have employees who are no longer technically “learning” and are making the majority of the products we sell. I gave the training group devotional on Thursday and the employee devotional on Friday.
Each day, one of the volunteer leaders prepares a devotional/time with the Lord. How cool is it that there exists a business that starts the morning off with time in prayer and connecting to Jesus together as a staff? I am so grateful, but even moreso, I am honored to have the privilege of leading this time with these wonderful women. Each and every one of these women come from different backgrounds, not only culturally, but also religiously.
The two I led were so different from each other. On Thursday, the training group of about 7 ladies and I went over Ephesians 2:8-10, which says “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you cannot take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Whoa. I did not realize how loaded this passage was until we all read it together. Good thing I didn’t start us from verse 4 like I thought about doing.
One of the women read the passage, and then another read it once more. It was so beautiful to hear the Word of God coming out of their mouths and in their accents. We talked about what God is saving us from, the words grace and masterpiece, the difference between salvation and redemption, the definition of a gift and what we did to be worthy of receiving it… and the discussions went on. The women have surprised me with not only their knowledge of God and the Bible, but also their understanding of how valuable they are. God knows how much they believe it deep down, but their words express genuine understanding of God’s heart for them and for others. It’s inspiring.
The Friday morning devotional was just myself and two other ladies. We got a later start because one of them made a phone call and the other one and I had some good ol’ fashioned girl talk. It was so sweet. We talked like two girl friends who have known each other for much longer. When the other’s phone call ended, she jumped in and we all three girl-talked it up! I wish I could tell you all about this conversation because it was so funny, but you know, it’s girl stuff 😉
When we finally got to our devotional, we jumped into Luke 15:3-7 and read about the lost sheep. The context of this passage begins with the Pharisees and teachers of the Law referring to Jesus as someone who sits and eats with outcasts. Jesus loved the outcasts; he chases after them and pursues them. One of the women said she is definitely an outcast in Greece and it is nice to know that our Lord loves everyone, even the outcasts.
My perspective of this passage was to focus on the way the shepherd pursues his one sheep, even though he has 99 others. My idea of the point of this story was how God goes after us when we are lost and rejoices with the heavens when we follow him. One of the women, however, focused more on the 99. She brought up a beautiful point about how Jesus must’ve felt after dying for each and every one of us and so many people do not appreciate or receive the great sacrifice he made and the gift he gave because of his love for us. One of my responses, and the point we closed on, was: And if you were the only one that would accept Christ’s gift of salvation, he still would have done it all over again just for you.
It was a beautiful time and I’m so thankful for these moments to connect with them. Working alongside them is great! I love every second of it, but these moments are priceless!
Please be praying for the Threads ladies. I cannot tell you all that they could use prayer for… no seriously, I’m not allowed to tell you. For privacy reasons with this demographic, I will not be putting out specifics about the women. However, please pray for them. There are so many things that they are putting their faith in God to take care of, but eventually, it would be natural to grow weary in the waiting.
Thanks everyone! I love you all!
Xoxo,
Hannah
Hannah in the Homeland 