Girls Gone Wise » Mission | Girls Gone Wise: Spiritual Smarts for Womanhood, Life & Love

Give Life to Xaiquo for Lent – Week 5

Gabrielle Pickle — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:00:20 +0000

Since the day of her birth in a rural village in China, Xaiquo was neglected and abused. Her two older brothers and father wanted to get rid of her. They even went so far as to poison her food. Yet miraculously, she survived. When she was 13, they sold her to a 73-year-old who wanted her as a breeder – to give birth to a son. When she gave birth to a daughter, her owner was enraged and sold her to traffickers. Xaiquo was just 16.

Faithful Christian workers serve tirelessly in the red-light districts of China to reach out to girls, like Xaiquo, and guide them out of slavery. Rescued girls are brought to a safe house with a loving house mother. Traumatized girls receive room and board in a Christ-centered haven, where they experience unconditional love, most for the first time.

The gift of $180 allows Xaiquo the life-transforming opportunity to receive the love and care to recover from her past and build a future of dignity, while receiving counseling, job training, and microloans to start a new life!

It is the fifth week of the Give Life for Lent campaign, sponsored by She Is Safe, where individuals give up something worth about $30 a week for the weeks of Lent (March 9-April 24) and use that money to change a life!

Prayer Focus

Pray for the rural girls who are trafficked to the cities, that they have access a safe haven home and a chance for new life.

Scripture Focus

“It is the Lord who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.” (Psalm 146:7)

Give Maya Life for Lent – Week 2

Gabrielle Pickle — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:00:15 +0000

“I did not have the skills to bring a good income,” Maya admitted, her brown eyes downcast. A single mom of the Dalit – Untouchable – Caste, she had struggled to survive in the slums of India since her husband divorced her at 16. “But I was given the opportunity for training at the women’s center. Now I have a business embroidering all types of things, even lace. People come from all over to have me do fine work on their saris.”

“I have two daughters, the older one is in a nursing course and the younger one is in the 1^st grade. The income from my embroidery business pays for my daughters’ education. This training has been a great help! Now my girls have a future,” she smiled, tears of joy glistening in her eyes.

The gift of $180 allowed Maya the training needed to change her entire life and give her girls a future.

It is the second week of the Give Life for Lent campaign, sponsored by She Is Safe, where individuals give up something worth about $30 a week for the 6 weeks of Lent (March 9-April 24) and use that money to change a life!

Prayer Focus

Join us in praying for the thousands of impoverished Indian women in self-help groups receiving vocational training, micro-loans and discipleship to grow in faith and abilities to provide a bright future for their families. And pray for the funding for over 1,600 destitute women who are on the waiting list for training, waiting for sponsors.

Scripture Focus

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow’s cause.” Isaiah 1:17

Give Life for Lent – Week 1

Gabrielle Pickle — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:30:00 +0000

The season of Lent begins today. And it’s not too late for you to join Girls Gone Wise in giving life for lent!

Traditionally, throughout the history of Christianity, Lent has been a time to prepare our hearts to observe Christ’s death, burial and resurrection at Easter. But, what if this year, Lent did more than ever before?

What if this year, Lent remains a season of personal reflection, and also connects you to God’s heart for the hurting?

What if this year, Lent was about both individual spiritual growth and global outreach?

What if this year, for the next 6 weeks (March 9 -April 24), you committed to give life to the world’s most vulnerable human beings?

Around the world, women and girls make up 80% of those trafficked, 70% of illiterates and 70% of the impoverished. We know that religion God sees as pure and faultless involves reaching out to orphans and widows in their distress (James 1:27). This year, I am inviting you to join me in giving life to the oppressed for Lent. A gift of $180 to She Is Safe provides exactly what she needs for a whole new life!

Observe Lent – Change her life

Her sewing machine was sinking, the rain-soaked mud floor lapping at the legs of the heavy iron sewing machine. Undaunted by her muddy surroundings, the seamstress beamed while showing off her beautiful embroidery.

The seamstress, Ayuru, is just one of over 4.9 million Sudanese people run out of their homes by war. Escaping with her life, this illiterate widow and her 8 children ended up in a camp living in a home constructed of mud and sticks, where raw sewage flows freely from hut to hut during rainy season.

Yet in this desolate situation, Ayuru has hope. She was given the priceless opportunity to learn sewing at the Women’s Center run by Sudanese believers, funded by She Is Safe. Now Ayuru earns $200 a month with her sewing machine, paying for her oldest son to attend the university and the younger children to go to school. ”Because of Jesus, I have hope,” she smiles. “And because of his people, I have the skills to provide a future for my family.

How can you change her life?

Step 1: Choose to give up something – for the next 6 weeks – worth about $30 a week.

Step 2: Donate the saved $$ to transform the life of an exploited and abused girl through She Is Safe.

Step 3: Pray for safety and survival supplies of the women and children living in the camps and settlements in war-ravaged areas of Sudan.

“Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” Psalm 68:5

Smart Talk: Life for Lent

Katie McCoy — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:00:34 +0000

Fatima was a child-bride at age 9, gave birth at 10, divorced at 11,was re-married at 12, and discarded at 13. In today’s Smart Talk, Gabrielle Pickle, from “She is Safe” joins us to discuss the plight of young women around the world who endure the abuse, injustice, and indignity of child-bridehood and prostitution. She shares how you can help rescue a girl like this by giving Life for Lent.

Around the world, women and girls make up

80% of those trafficked

70% of illiterates and

70% of the impoverished

She Is Safe (SIS) is an organization working to prevent, rescue and restore women and girls from abuse and exploitation in highest risk places around the world. For just $180 – the cost of giving up a luxury for just six weeks – you can change the life of one woman for an eternity!

…How?

SIS invites you to participate in giving life to the oppressed for Lent. What if, this season, from Ash Wednesday (March 9) to Easter, you committed to give life to the world’s most vulnerable human beings?

What if this year, you could Give Life for Lent?

If you and your friends or family would like to join this powerful campaign, sign the petition ( http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lifeforlent/). This automatically sends you an email each week during lent with a prayer focus, scriptural emphasis and story of a girl whose life was transformed! The email will also give you instructions on how to donate and change her life!

If your church would like to join the campaign, SIS offers a free digital promo packet, including a promo video, bulletin inserts, slide, and a 6-week prayer guide. Email Gabrielle Pickle at gpickle@SheIsSafe.org for more information.

Together we can Give Life for Lent!

If you can’t listen on the player, CLICK HERE

(Sorry that this week’s Smart Talk is late… we had a malicious attack on the website and server yesterday, that crippled our site and tried to take us down.)

Approvaholics Anonymous

Katie McCoy — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:00:37 +0000

by Katie McCoy

Hi. My name is Katie, and I’m an approvaholic. (This is the part where you say, “Hi, Katie”) For many of us, the need for approval is as strong and insatiable as an addiction. While you may not call yourself an approval addict, perhaps you’re known as a people-pleaser, someone who will go to great lengths to keep everyone happy with them. But if we belong to Christ, the Bible says that we cannot live to please both people and God: “For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10, also check out Acts 5:29)

The culture will tell you that the best way to break from your people-pleasing path is to reclaim the real you! Take control of your life. Learn to say “no.” Indulge in the things that you want to do and “just do you.” (Sound familiar?) Ironically, an approvaholic may seem like they’re working for God and others, but the heart-motivation is often about their emotional security, their reputation, and their standing in the eyes of others. It’s not about God’s glory and obeying His Word; it’s about their own glory and others’ opinions.

An Approvaholic confuses pleasing people with honoring God.

Many of us can relate to Martha, who resentfully took on all the work she considered so important. She was so focused on getting things done the “right way” and meeting a perceived expectation that she almost missed her one real priority of knowing Jesus more and learning from Him (Luke 10:38-42). While what she was busy doing was not wrong in itself, as Jesus told her it wasn’t the one thing that was needed.

An Approvaholic seeks to validate the leading of God with the opinions of others.

The Apostle Paul probably had good reason to feel the need for validation. Before his own conversion, he was one of the early Church’s greatest enemies. In one life-changing encounter with Christ, the very people he was working to destroy became his peers. But unlike an approval addict, he didn’t seek the confirmation of other believers to validate what God had made clear to him. “But when it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me” (Galatians 1:15-17). He acted in obedience upon what God had said, without needing the approval or agreement of other people.

An Approvaholic views the opportunity to serve God as an opportunity to gain personal praise.

Judges 11 tells us the tragic story of Jephthah. Motivated by gaining the respect and approval of those that had mistreated him, he made a rash vow to the Lord that revealed his own heart: “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30-31). For Jephthah, and for the approval addict, the motivation for success wasn’t for God’s glory, it was for his own (“If You will deliver…into my hands). This is the same attitude that Paul spoke of in his letter to the Philippians when he said that, “Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife…from selfish ambition, not sincerely” (v. 15-16). For the Approvaholic who thirsts for people’s high opinions, even good and godly things can be distorted for self-centered motives.

An Approvaholic’s self-worth is based on their performance and motivated by pride.

At the heart of a woman who is afraid of disappointing others is the belief that she can make everyone happy with her. Underneath the fear of saying no, letting someone down or falling short of a goal, is the lie that she can fulfill people’s expectations, do things the right way or achieve outer perfection. In fact, when we boil it down to the condition of the heart, feeding the approval addiction is just another modern-day idol.

Perhaps you’ve been working for good and godly things but have been motivated by a desire other than serving the Lord. God desires “truth in the innermost parts” more than a well-executed sacrifice (Psalm 51:6, 16-17). Maybe you’ve been accepting every extra responsibility out of the belief that you’re the only person capable of fulfilling it, and forgetting that God is the one who qualifies all of us to serve Him. “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant,” (2 Cor. 3:5-6).

So how can we overcome our addiction to approval? It begins when we humble ourselves and realize how incapable we are of perfection and how unworthy we are of praise. Ephesians 1 says that before the world was even made every believer was chosen and accepted in Christ. And because He chose You, you were made right with and accepted by God because of Christ’s work on the cross (Rom. 8:30-31). It never has, or will have, anything to do with your performance. You did nothing and can do nothing to gain his approval. Your Heavenly Father chose to set His love on you. That’s it - and that’s grace!

God is far more pleased with an obedient heart that fears Him than the pretense of having it all together. When you start living to please your Heavenly Father rather than the of the approval of others, your time, your priorities and your heart-motivation will start lining up with His will. You may not be able to meet others’ expectations, but you will be honoring God.

You don’t have to be an Approvaholic. You don’t have to live in fear of being rejected, being punished, making a mistake or not living up to some perceived expectation. The same One that has already purchased your approval before your only Judge is the very One who said, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). And in Him, you are completely – and already – accepted.

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