This year I was asked to lead the first women’s seminar that Cloverleaf Ministries would sponsor in Meru. To be completely honest, I was very nervous as I wasn’t qualified to train women quite yet. However, I remember hearing Papa’s gentle voice saying: “don’t worry my beloved one, Holy Spirit will be working alongside you to get you ready for this”. He then talked to me through Moses’s story- he wasn’t qualified to get the Israelites out of Egypt, but the fact that he wasn’t qualified, qualified him because I am was going with him.

I was asked to write a manual/study on Proverbs 31 so I got right on it. As I began my research, I heard the Lord asking me to start reading one verse a day every morning before starting my day and just allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal what He wanted me to write about as I went through this study, and what He revealed was powerful and yet so attainable for what I needed in this season. I knew that through this study God also wanted to prepare me to be His bride, and so He did! Papa not only took me through this process of discovering who I was as a bride, but also my inner beauty. 1 Peter 3:3-5 says: “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. ⁴ Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ⁵ For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves”. The beauty that we find in Christ is unfading- it lasts forever and this is the message I wanted to get across for the women in Kenya.

After four months of preparing, processing, and praying, I was ready to teach! As the day of the seminar approached, my prayer was that God would bring right group of women whose hearts would be ready to receive what God wanted to speak through my message. The day of the seminar came and I was full of His peace knowing that I was co-laboring with Him! As the women walked in and found their seats, I was getting my message ready and one of the people from my team suggested I should teach the women how to salsa to break the ice because women from Meru tend to be shy and a bit reserved, so I put on some Israel Houghton, and began the seminar with some salsa which lifted up their spirits and got smiles on their faces. After this fun icebreaker, I asked Holy Spirit to come and began to teach. I began to go over the importance of intimacy with the Father through Jesus, then talked about being virtuous mothers (both spiritual and physical), virtuous wives, how to handle finances, being good servants in our communities, using the skills God has provided us, how to be great homemakers, how to use our time wisely, and lastly, how to find our inner beauty. At the end of my seminar one of the women that was there approached me and asked me more information about the manual I had written as she heads and organization that helps women in uncivilized villages. In these villages girls aren’t allowed to go to school, their genitals are mutilated, and they are oppressed, so this girl approached me and thanked me for this seminar as she will be taking the material to disciple these girls and teach them what she learned. My heart jumped for joy hearing this, and my next trip there I promised her to visit this village and continue discipleship courses there to empower those women to become what God has called them to be. Father God told me this is just the beginning! I am happy to sow all these seeds and see harvesters come help grow these seeds and see women grow in their inner beauty. I plan to stay in touch with her and see development in this village.

If you want to read the manual I wrote, email me at andreakpetry@gmail.com and I would be happy to share it with you J