Western Highlands women experience renewal and transformation at district ladies conference

Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea

Friday, August 14, 2009

Hundreds of women sang in Melanesian Pidgin English while walking under the bamboo arch to the Bunim-Wo Church of the Nazarene property on Monday, August 3, gathering for a district ladies conference in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Kathy Radcliffe reports:

They were singing, "I want to come (to this gathering) and I want to go all the way to heaven." It was a beautiful sight and sound!

The local community and the hosting circuit (zone) welcomed all the conference attendees by lining the road, singing, and waving palm branches. There were colored laplaps (pieces of cloth) and palm branches spread on the road where everyone entered the big meeting. As Meti Wusik, a godly Nazarene mother, walked with many others on the palm branches and laplaps, she expressed the meaning of such a triumphal entry: "Truly, we are coming with our King Jesus into this place. He is meeting with us here."

And truly He did meet with those women as they focused on reviving the holiness fire of God in their lives. The conference was bathed in prayer and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. There was a moving response in a morning service focusing on the work of God's Spirit to remove the root of sin in our lives. Many women presented themselves to God for renewal and transformation.

A class session, "The Wife's Sorrows" continued the theme of sanctification and was especially meaningful to those women who were in polygamous or broken marriages. Lois Staton, wife of an American volunteer doctor, shared her testimony which spoke powerfully to those who were carrying pain and sorrow in their marriages. The PNG ladies received with enthusiasm the truths that when God says, "All things work together for good to those that love the Lord", He does mean ALL things. And when He says, "Do not be anxious about anything," He means ANYTHING!

The ladies received a handout illustrating a heart filled with "Love for God" and "Love for Others". This kind of a heart allows a woman to live with the "Pain and Sorrow" that is also in her life. Join in prayer for these precious ladies to live their lives in obedience and devotion to their Lord as they return to their everyday responsibilities across the Western Highlands of PNG.

--NCN News Asia-Pacific