Women's Ministry Afternoon Service

just a moment we're going to be starting our praise in worship [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] welcome everyone we're going to get started with praise and worship and our first hymn is 86 how great thou art [Music] oh lord my god when i [Music] i see the stars [Applause] [Music] is how great thou art how great then sings my soul my savior [Music] [Music] and hear the birds to thee [Music] my savior how great the heart [Applause] is [Music] in to take away my sins how great how great the heart then sings my soul my savior [Music] [Applause] [Music] shall come with shout of acclamation and take me home what joy shall fill my heart then i shall bow in humble later my god my soul my savior [Music] [Applause] amen our next song is 526. 526. because he was god [Music] he came to life [Music] he lived to be is [Music] [Music] is he holds the future and life is worth the living just because how sweet [Music] right and joy he gives god this child can face uncertainty because he lives because he lives is is is [Music] is [Music] [Music] i just want to welcome you guys again to tonight's program i want to and welcome everyone from all the visiting churches and as well as all of our speakers who came out tonight right now i'm going to call elder cliff omuego to come pray for us happy sabbath church i think you had lunch happy summer church all right all right let's place our eyes as we open with the word of prayer our most gracious father in heaven father wanna thank you so much for the gift of sabbath i wanna thank you so much for loving us further giving us all the good health you bless us with so much father we want to thank you so much this afternoon as we start i continue the program further we just want to invite your presence father send your holy spirit to be with the speakers be with their members be even those who are still on their way father please be with them as they come so they may be blessed uh together we might be blessed together father we thank you father for all they we've learned this morning continue to show us love in our homes father start at home father father we know we've fallen short we ask for forgiveness be with us now and always in jesus name we pray may be seated so at this moment we're going to have intercessory prayer we're going to ask sister sandra lee to come and lead us in that prayer as well as sister marilyn akurando i'm sorry if i mispronounced that okay we'll have sister sandra lee come and lead us in this intercessory prayer good evening everyone welcome back i know that we might be um a bit smaller numbers but we are always a majority when we have the holy spirit with us and i love to read from this little devotion and it's called homeward bound and as we are homeward bound for the canaan land as i read from page 251 it says i mean in god therefore beseech you to walk worthy of the calling well of course this was paul writing to the church in in ephesus but it was inspired and this is the advice that god is giving us he says i beseech you to walk worthy of the calling for which you were called endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirits in the bond of peace ephesians 4 1 3 and so we are focusing on peace in our homes and peace is something that seems to erode many of us we uh we take a lot of pills we take uh relaxation drinks but it is only god that can give us true peace he says my peace i give you not as this world gives but the peace that when we even experience it we cannot even understand it so at this time i'd like us to stand as we pray dear heavenly father as we come this afternoon again to spend some time in your word oh god as we seek to break the bonds of carnality as we seek their god to break up the bonds that cause pain in our homes the variances the difference as we come as we stand against domestic violence and abuse against those in the home those in the church those in the community the vulnerable our children oh god father god i ask first that you will forgive us forgive me i am unworthy to even intercede on behalf of my own self oh god much less for your children and so father i pray that you will hide me and then when the father sees me he will see the blood of jesus christ that was shed on calvary so that we could be forgiven lord we know that it is the enemy who has come to bring division to cause strife malice harm hatred and pain and discord but father god we know that greater is he that is in us the body of christ than he that rules the world and there is nothing too difficult god says that he desires that we ask consul dear lord i'm asking that each person here and those that couldn't stay and those that doesn't even want to stay and those that are being online god will find peace as only you can give oh and as i said this morning in job when you said it when god gives quietness who can make trouble god we need to rise above satan and his assaults but we can only do that through the reading to the studying and through the belief of your word father so many of us lack faith that you are able to transform us and change our lives so that we can be brand new creatures and so father god i pray that you will be with each presenter here today father if there's somebody here today that has experienced violence at the hand of another human being father first of all i ask that you will touch that person heal that person i ask that you'll be with the perpetrator that the person himself that needs or herself that needs your intervention oh god we're so broke and we are so hurting and dear lord we have given up actually and the only person who can help us sometimes we run to doctors we run to psychologists we run to all different different types of medicines and yoga and but father god the only person who is able to give us true peace is jesus christ and this evening god i pray that when we would have left here that the prince of peace would have visited each heart each mind and each soul that they will leave here transformed this is my humble prayer and i ask it all in the sweet name of jesus christ o lord amen so so so so whoops [Music] happy sabbath um my name is sterling adams and this is my sister sapphire adams and we're going to be playing a song for you today named um autumn vows [Music] so [Music] so [Music] um [Music] um [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] hey [Applause] oh again i just want to say right now i do have the honor i would say the greatest honor to introduce our speaker for tonight and her name is tara bird tamara bird i do apologize okay tamara bird has a p-a-c-m-s-p-a her experience with marriage and family ministry as since over 10 years she has covered topics such as divorce affairs abuse intel denominational and interfaith marriages she also she has over 20 years of working with the youth and young adults at the conference and local level and volunteering her experience with at rift's youth in her work experience she's screened and or unaddressed abuse violence human sex trafficking depression and children and adult alike happy summer everybody thank you mrs bird for being here today along with uh mrs tamara byrd we also have another speaker here today she's going to be addressing a lot of things she goes by the name sandra lee mars miss lemars is not a stranger to houston international she has been serving in the area of women's ministry for almost two decades she has been married for 32 years to her sweetheart aval mars and they have two young adult children kiki her daughter and jay her son as a missionary sandy as she goes by had traveled to the caribbean the united kingdom and india on speaking and singing assignments she has authored christian devotionals for the general conference ministry women's ministry department which helps to raise funds for young women to attend college she also has a devotional column in the texas conference women's ministry facebook page miss sandy loves people and is passionate about evangelism and the medical missionary work she really enjoys being in nature traveling decorating and trying new plant based recipes sandy however only really wants to be known as the girl who loves jesus christ amen please welcome sandra lee mars back to houston international welcome and i have the honor to introduce our third speaker for the day and that is pastor roderick bishop pastor roder bishop is not new to eastern international church this is one pastor that when you call on him he's not ready to say no especially if it is the work of god and by this that same fact he has already prayed seriously about it uh he was actually born into the methodist faith church and that was one interesting thing i got to know and later he gave his life to jesus christ later in life and since then he has been into intercessory prayers he has been getting to make sure that everybody give their life to jesus he has so many ministerial milestones in his name everything of any leadership in this church he has taken his men's ministry leadership cyber school leadership he has been into enrich and outreach he has been eastern area big coordinator i can go on and on is even a certified counselor and a live christian coach so he's so relevant the issue we are discussing today this is not anything new to him he's a certified victim counselor of things like this so and he's married to his beautiful wife shalondra bishop and that was in september 7 2008. i'm not going to forget that pastor so but one thing he wants you to know today is that he loves jesus and he will want you to love jesus and everything that makes him to get people to know jesus he really wants to do that thank you everyone and just to before we leave i just want to welcome our woman ministry leader from kd church and our other sister that's with her thank you for coming and other churches members from other churches thank you good afternoon i had a good time with you guys yet last night i hope you enjoyed it as we did going through some of the stuff and definition today i'm hoping to move a little bit faster through some of the stuff but again it's going to be a lot of information and hopefully we come out out of this blessed as well before i go ahead and start let me go ahead and have a word of prayer heavenly father i want to give you thanks because you watch over us and you keep us and you give us strength and courage and then when you and you we find mercy and in you lord we find the answers and in you we find peace and in you we find hope so lord as we get started today fill me with your holy spirit lead me according to your will and let us be a light in the middle of the darkness and let us stand fast and strong in your presence and in the presence of all that is evil in jesus name amen so we did last night we did uh balance we talked about the different types of violence we also talked about abuse and then we talked about child abuse being committed towards the child and the child also being a violent offender as i mentioned last night we're going to go ahead and discuss domestic violence today and again i will advise parents to use your discretion with children especially minor little ones as we going through some topics that may not be appropriate for them and i think it's my understanding that they were going to provide a place for them somewhere if you guys wanted to leave them so i'm don't know but if yes okay she's saying yes so if you have little ones and you want them to step out it's up to you but again some of the subject may not be appropriate for the little ones all right so if we can get to the domestic slide and if you don't mind dimming the lights in the front that'd be great domestic this good i believe someone was meant to hear this message today and therefore we're having technical difficulties but all will work out [Music] so okay one day on our anniversary weekend i just wanted to go out for a nice dinner when we got back i wanted to talk and cuddle my husband kept advancing physically and i put him off in a playful way i don't understand what happened next all of a sudden he got this odd look in his eyes and he said you cannot disrespect me this way the next thing i knew he had pinned me down and was physically forcing himself on me i couldn't tell he was angry i couldn't tell what was going on but i can tell you i was terrified so i didn't resist i had never seen him like this before to this day i can't understand how he could do that to me while i was crying didn't he care that he was scaring me and hurting me this is the voice of domestic violence and as we get started i want us to have a clear definition of what that is okay so it's not working okay domestic go back one please domestic violence it is referred to intimate partner violence we call it ipv and dating abuse or relationship of use and is any pattern or behavior that is used to gain or retain power and control over an intimate partner next slide domestic violence belong to one race one culture one religion one educated uneducated financial tears no it says it doesn't discriminate right it is permeates everything it doesn't matter who you are violence can strike at any time so if you look at domestic violence it includes harm intimidation manipulation and control it encompasses everything we talked about last night sexual physical psychological next slide let's look at numbers for a little bit the prevalence of violence across their women and men so they did a study and this is from the cdc across their lifetime one in five women and one in seven men report experiencing physical violence from an intimate partner one in five and one in seven does that surprise you especially for the men because we think of violence as something that just women experience and it's here says one out of five and one out of seven now when it comes to rape that's a different story it's um it's higher in women than it is in men as we discussed last night but here it goes to 26 percent of women and and 20 and 15 percent of men have experienced being dating teen sorry teen dating violence at what age did these people experience this type of violence can anybody tell me the last one before 25 years of age those are our young adults right i mean i don't know about you but that's kind of a scary statistic and we think it's often more in the older people but it's before the age of 25 they have their first experience next slide if someone can read that for me do we have the mic on the floor approximately 16.9 percent of women and 8 of men will experience sexual violence other than race by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime battered women who stay with their abusers are at a 75 percent less risk of getting killed by them according to domestic violence against men's statistics female assailants are almost twice as likely to use a weapon than their male counterparts all right so let's look at that second point right there how many how likely are you to get hurt if you leave or you stay so if you stay do you get hurt or do you go which one would you choose looking at that statistics do you stay or you go on the second one you stay because if you leave what's the percentage of you getting hurt 75 percent that goes through the question of why women stay the higher risk the the point that is the most deadliest in a domestic violence is when the woman decides or the man decides to leave that relationship that is when it's most risky for the individual because the two things can happen the person either decides to become very aggressive takes control and through physical force keeps the person and often not ends up in severe injury or death or the person gets to go away but then the other person the perpetrator starts to stalk them manipulate them and if that doesn't work they flip and they become the most loving the most apologetic i'm sorry forgive me and they convince them to come back and when they come back it is worse okay so that goes to the question that people ask why do women stay or why do men stay i don't understand it is riskier for them to leave than to stay the other one females who commit the the assault what does this say there they're more likely to do what use a weapon so if the female is an offender she will likely commit a serious crime because of the use of a weapon so whether it's because they have fear and they feel like they have to use a weapon or is it just that they tend to be more violent i cannot answer that question but the fact is that females when they try to when they are the offender they will use a weapon men will use it to but men normally results to force and all the other things i just mentioned forest and then if that doesn't work they try to flip so you got the jack on high going on next slide please so the victim the number one predictor falling into an abusive relationship are people who experience abuse in any part of their life and those with low self-esteem but anyone can become a victim and that goes to what we discussed yesterday if a child is exposed to a violent behavior act or if they're exposed to abuse they are more likely to enter in those type of relationships so let's take a look at the victim profile next slide i would like for someone to read that slide are you quick to get involved in a relationship do you feel alone like no one understands you are you fearful of rejection and abandonment do you accept what others may say or think about you without challenging that point of view are you desperate for love acceptance affirmation and approval are you a people pleaser are you attracted to emotionally unavailable people do you blame others for your circumstances i want you to really look at this slide because i want you to ask yourself these questions most of you may be married in a relationship already that doesn't mean that you are free from experiencing violence because some of these things may predispose you to that whether it's in a relationship or whether you're out and about predators know who to target and this is one of the this is what we call the victim profile if you are this person you are most likely to experience a violent act in your life whether by someone you know whether by your intimate partner or a stranger because of this and trust me they know when i went to the jail system here in tc gesture for the criminally insane i interview a patient there and he said to me oh i know which woman i can attack and he gave me a profile of the women and it fits that to the t because it's the way you carry yourself it's the way you have lack of eye contact or eye contact it's the way that you are always wanting to please and you always think about what other thing about you even if it's not correct you believe it so you buy into this lie the next slide has the other ones there's um the next line so these are continuation of that slide this is still the profile of the victim who were you not one not who others say you are but you the individual if you cannot answer this question then you have some serious reassessment to do about the relationships you are in and yourself can we hold there for a minute the question is who are you right now who people say you are who are you and i added the rest because if you cannot answer this question even if you don't think you're in an abusive relationship if you cannot answer this question there is a problem you have to know who you are as an individual and as a child of god you have to know your self-worth and if you've been stripped of that you don't know it and maybe you haven't realized it but there is some insidious form of abuse going on that you're not aware because you have to know who that who you are you're not a teenager you're not in college trying to figure yourself out so um the next one do you feel like you have to control everything and be perfect in order to avoid negative backlash you know that doesn't work right and i'll explain why and we may go into it if time allows but basically you try to control everything to avoid that other person attacking you to to go into what we call the escalating phase but it will always escalate no matter what you do because the person will always blame you it is you you are the problem that is the lie that they are standing so it doesn't matter how much you try to control it it will always escalate and lead to the attack do your fears keep you from stepping out from unhealthy relationships what are your needs do you even know are they been considered and met do you minimize these minimize things repress your feelings so going back to what are your needs ask yourself in the relationships you are that you're in are they being met have they been talked about have they been considered if they're not being met again that's a red flag next slide so let's see if you're being abused are you frying by your partner's temper and you can raise your hand in your heart don't raise it out here are you afraid to disagree with your partner i ha i'm it's it's interesting are you constantly apologizing for your partner's behavior especially when he or she has treated you badly do you have to justify every place you go in everything you do does your partner constantly put you down and then says he or she loves you ironic isn't that i'm going to put you down i'm going to beat you down emotionally but then i'm going to turn around and tell you i love you it's kind of when we look at parents they used to spank their children and sometimes they spank them a little bit too much depending on who you ask you should never spank a child and then they go beat the child and they say i'm doing this out of love and the last one have you ever been hit kicked shoved and had things thrown at you so part of domestic violence includes not only hitting you but if they throw they throw things at you even if it doesn't hit you is part of domestic violence remember the definition of violence was the intent to commit harm not just committing the harm as we discussed yesterday okay so the next slide please do you not see family or friends or do things you used to because of your partner's jealousy and this is a real a big one for me with young adults who are in dating relationships because uh domestic violence include dating relationships so intimate partner means husband dating or someone that you're having sex with and young adults when they're dating a lot of time i see this behavior and they say oh he loves me he just wants me all to myself uh no that's not true a person who loves you wants to share your world with you not take you away from that you should respect who you are as a person and share that with you not take you away from that number eight have you been forced into having sex when you didn't want to and that includes being married and being forced okay and we'll talk about that in a little bit and it is not only sex have you been forced to watch pornography how you've been forced to get involved with a third party have you been forced to do center and act and be recorded it expands all of that okay are you afraid to break up because your partner has threatened to hurt you or himself i've heard this too if i leave he will hurt himself or she will hurt herself it's more often you see it in women when they're the abuser they manipulate by saying and i hear the man well if i leave her i'm afraid that she's going to kill herself um that's a form of manipulation we talked about psychological emotional right that's one of them not unless the person has a true mental disability and even if they do you cannot help them because they if they have a mental issue or they're depressed or they are or have a disorder that needs to be addressed by a professional and you're not equipped to do that so it shouldn't fall on you you need to seek out the right help do you feel less confident about yourself when you're with him or her that's very important if you when you're away from the person you feel better about yourself than being with the person then you need to walk away from that relationship okay because you that person should lift you up and make you feel even better instead of making you feel worse so if you're feeling worse when you're around this person walk away do you feel scared or worry about doing or saying the wrong thing are you walking on eggshells are you tiptoeing around the person do you find yourself changing your behavior out of fear or to avoid a fight and this goes back into the cycle of abuse okay next slide please are you abusive now this is for you or those that are watching us online it's easy to point the finger and say you're hurting me you're doing x y and c but in every relationship we also understand that there's two interactions right you're not having an interaction by yourself if you are we need to assess what's going on with you that you're having this delusion so it's an interaction between two individuals did you contribute to some of this and and this is i'm i'm gonna pause here i'm not telling you to buy into the lie that is your fault but i'm asking you to step away and see what is it that you brought or bring into a relationship that makes you prone to this situation it doesn't justify it it doesn't make a right and it is not your fault the act for the person the choice for the other person to act the way they did is their choice but you i have to reflect because if you get away from the relationship you have to br react re-analyze yourself so you don't bring that same thing into the next one you understand what i'm trying to say yes okay are we on number two i forgot where we are number two we just did number one okay are you extremely jealous or possessive have you hit kicked shoved or thrown things at your partner have you threatened your partner or broken things in your partner's presence have you forced your partner to have sex with you or intimate intimidated your partner to do that i can't read that because it's kind of bent your partner so that he or she is afraid to say no have you threatened to hurt your partner and have you threatened to hurt yourself if your partner leaves without you if you answer to this one one of them is yes then you're an abusive person if you answered yes to the other ones of the victim if you answer one question yes whether to the victim or to the abusive then you are either a victim or you're being abused it only takes one yes on both ends okay and this is just general questions you can also include are they using your children too many are you using children to manipulate that partner then you're also being abusive are you using religion to manipulate the partner then you're also being abusive are you using culture to manipulate the partner then you're also being abusive okay next one can you guys see that okay is there any way we can zoom into that because we're on a half screen so it's kind of hard to see that normally we take up the whole screen yes please nobody else will put up with you like i do because they want you to stay dependent on them for your sense of approval and value instead of disentangling from the enshrinements enmeshments we can just read the i'll just the captions yeah the bones nobody else thinks like that just you i have no idea what you're talking about what are your issues you're not perfect i've already said i was sorry stop harping if you had jess blank i would never have blank i can never get anything right for you why can't you just let it go you didn't let me finish what i was saying all right so these are sayings that a toxic person will say so you don't necessarily need to be in an outright abusive relationship this is emotional abuse as well they're being they're deflecting and they're putting the blame back on you so if you look at it how many of you have ever heard i'm just gonna wait for that thank you how many of you have ever heard nobody else will put up with you like i do how many of you don't raise your hand but in reality how many of you have heard this nobody else thinks that just you because you're crazy right you have it all in your head i have no idea what you're talking about this goes down like this they just finished having a conversation with you about something which what's called gaslighting they ignite you they get you going so then you come back and they're looking at you like what are you talking about i have no idea what's going on why are you so upset why are you so sensitive and you're like but we just finished no it's in your head right what about your issues you're not perfect i've heard this in general groups of conversation i've already said i was sorry stop harping there's a reason you keep asking for the apology right we talked about this yesterday about a sincere apology versus apology that is given because it's expected if you had just blank can someone feel that blanking for me whatever it is i would never have it if you just done what i asked you i would never have to slap you hit you kick you shove you treat you bad take away my love from you because that includes that as well the person taking away what you desire the most their love and their affection okay why can't you just let it go that may be right sometimes we do harp on things but i'm taking this in a context of a toxic relationship i can never get anything right for you back to whose fault is it yours you didn't let me finish what i was saying otherwise i don't care what you're saying but in reality when you're talking about communication between couples or any relationship or any any form of relationship you should give the person time to complete their thought process and then you should respond so next slide please all right so this slides just talks about the circle of violence and we're going to go into all of this so since it's not really legible let's go to the next slide all right so this is system of abuse how do they control you with children they threaten you with the children right they may withhold child support they shame you in front of the children they silence you by using the children as a tool they molest children not necessarily your own it could be your own but they can molest any child and that's only to install fear don't ask me why they think that way and then they scare the children right and they scare you because they're hurting the children it can go both ways the next one is that the next slide okay so they use your culture basically they mistreat you and and if you can read that it says that they blame you for your culture and so basically it goes two ways they use the culture to say i do this because this is expected out of my culture or they shame you for your culture so it goes both ways they excuse it because of their culture or they take who you are as a person in your culture and they shame you for that they demean you right they force you they isolate you they silence you and exploit you next one emotional we talked about this yesterday they invalidate insult denies manipulates flips arguments acts possessive and vacillate this vacillation goes into the faces of abuse there's three phases of abuse there's a phase where it starts to escalate then there's the phase where they actually act the abuse out and then there's the honeymoon phase and a lot of time the victim when the phase phase one escalation is happening they may do something so they can just trigger the abuse get it over with and go into their honeymoon phase and that's a repetitive cycle so that's vacillate so you see a up and down in emotions and you see a nice side and a bad side and a nice and a bad side we talked about possessive and we talked about flipping the argument in the previous two slides that we talked about next slide financial you can read the captions lies decides interfere spending limits tracks and judges basically it comes down to the following as you read it they take possession of your finances and you no longer have the ability to make financial decisions they limit your bank account they tell you to account for every spending you spend but then they're spending without restriction they may limit your ability to get employed because if you're employed you're away from them and if you're employed you're making money which allows you to step away so they may take away that so that way you're dependent on them and they may misuse everything you have without your consent next one intellectual basically back to psychological intimidation invalidates dumbs insults insist demands a lot of time what you will see is that the man or the woman doesn't like to be outperformed intellectually and because you are smarter they threaten you in the form of saying you don't know what you're talking about you're dumb and so they start to steal away your intellectual knowledge in this in the format that you start to doubt yourself because intellectual knowledge makes you a person a threat to that person and so if you're intellectually sound and you have information and you get educated you will realize like today that what's going on is not normal they don't want you to go there so they will do everything they can to take that from you next one we discuss physical reckless disturbs chokes blocks blocks is when you're trying to get away and they stand in your way when you find out they had an affair which is considered a emotional psychological and physical abuse and you try to leave and they block the door and if you're at the point that you had enough and you try to leave they block every way you can leave right prevents hurts and assaults next slide sexual we talked about sexual they force themselves on you they criticize your body they demand sex uh what's that something on demand what's that show that channel that you watch tv and it's something on demand and you click on it and you get it you guys know what i'm talking about huh somebody said it tv is it called on demand right okay you can tell i watch a lot of tv something like that and that's what that is sex on demand all right this person can watch pornography and make you watch pornography with them and make you act out those acts cheat on you we go back to that so when i say physical harm on you it's not that they're physically hurting you but they are because they're having sex and guess what they may bring with them what a sexually transmitted infection stdsti in the clinic when a patient comes in and they're married and they're having issues and i have to then tell them we have to test you and they're positive and then they look at me how did i get this and i said well you're going to have to have a conversation with your partner oftentimes they find out this way at least with my clinic not always so you know i'm not i'm not generalizing this is the experience in my clinic that is not a fun way to find out and that is a physical assault because you can get most of them we can treat but hiv is with you and as we treat it nowadays you it's something that we now rarely see people die of it but there are some diseases that stay with you herpes is your friend for life it's what i tell my teenagers once you have it you always have it we treat the outbreaks but you always carry it disconnect the person withholds themselves from you again you want to be with that person for whatever reason and they know that they can manipulate you by holding they're not so much sex but their love and affection which in turn is sex molest and if you read that because i'm not sure if online if there's children present um they can do it to others or they can do it to yourself or they can do it to minors next one so social this has changed a little bit so it's basically stalking is what it is the ease drop on you you think you're having a private conversation with your mom or dad or sibling and they know everything they track everything you do there's a tracking on your phone you may not know it's activated and they know where you've been at what time and where you went and if not they'll ask you when did you get there how long did it take was their traffic right they and they control your interactions they will let you hang out with certain people but not with others so if you hang out with a strong woman that tells you hey step away from that person guess what that relationship is about to end and you don't know it because the person is about to tell you something that's going to cost you to break that relationship up even though it's not true back to monitoring discourages dictates and keeps next one so spiritual and we're going to go into this when it comes to the next topic basically they attack everything that is you or they use what you believe to attack you all right so they may twist the scriptures they may exploit their religious wishes using what they believe to get their way use it as a leverage turn the other cheek forgiveness if you're not if you're a christian you should forgive right so they use forgiveness as a tool silence that use that goes back to using scriptures to silence you beliefs and soul next one and we talked about verbal abuse yesterday shaming screaming humiliates you forbids puts down cuts off humiliation is key what they want to do is strip you off your self-worth so you are more and more dependent of them and humiliation can be very subtle they may say i said ah you don't know what you're talking about and then play it off as a joke there's a lot of things that come in a form of a joke that they're not jokes they're meant to insult next one so this is what it should be if you are in a healthy relationship and god is in your home the children should be protected provided children should build up role model and shows kindness and provide security next one cultural basically it's just saying because you can't see it very well that he or she should respect who you are your culture your beliefs and if they don't again back to a problem especially in society now that we are marrying different races different cultures different belief system even in adventist church we have people who are married to people who are of different faith just because you disagree doesn't give you the right to insult the individual next one so emotional they should be able to communicate be affectionate be straightforward steady and stable extend trust fights fair and validate communication is key in a good relationship healthy relationship the communication should not be toxic it should be you can have positive and negative feedback but in a healthy way they should be affectionate and the other one is fight fair i want to touch on that just because you disagree and you're fighting doesn't mean you have an issue we're human beings we're not going to agree on everything we're going to have our differences but it's how you go about that that makes the issue so to have differences is okay but to use that to degrade insult someone that's not okay next financial that's giving you the freedom to do what you need to do with your money you should share if you're sharing about an account and it's uh both of you in the account it shouldn't be my money his money i mean depending if the person has a spending issue that's a whole different topic you know i've seen that but if you're both equally inputting into that account you should be able to equally take out within reason and should be equally able to buy things for yourself within reason without being made feel guilty for buying something for yourself okay the woman back there saying amen there are no secrets about the spending if something doesn't add up then you have the right to ask the person hey what's going on and there should be no secret there should be transparency in every aspect of our relationship complete transparency not just finances but about everything next one your intellect you should not be afraid to be a genius to put it simply you should not be afraid to be smarter than the other person you should not be afraid to exercise your intellectual capacity okay don't dumb yourself down to win that person don't do that god gave us knowledge he made us who we are if he gave you a gift in some in some specific field acknowledge that gift and use it for his glory okay next one physical is important the relationship should be filled with nurturing love affection mutual satisfaction okay this is not one way street is a mutual satisfaction you should sit down understand each other's needs and be able to fulfill those needs as long as you are comfortable to do so and if you are not it is not the right of the other person to say you have to all right i know that sometimes women and men may experience turbulent relationships so they go into the next one being afraid that's a different issue if you've been raped if you've been molested you may have be uncomfortable with sexual contact we're not talking about that that person needs their time and their space and understanding from that person because of what they've had but if you've always had a healthy understanding of what sex is then you should be able to have a healthy sexual relationship as long as it's mutually agreed upon and not coerced or forced next one psychological goes along with intellect they go hand in hand if at any time you don't feel good about yourself when you're with that person like i stated before walk away know your worth i cannot emphasize this not your worth in the world but your worth as a child of god are we not children of god is he not the king of this world didn't he create the heavens and the earth and didn't he call you unto him didn't he die for you and are we considered the temple of the holy spirit right according to first corinthians understand your worth and when you do that and the other person's acknowledged that you will blossom the other person should uplift you now put you down next one sexual i'm going to skip this because we're going to go into that in a little bit next slide back to social you should be able to talk to your mom dad friends siblings if you want to talk to them every day and that's what you like to do why should i control that unless you're talking to the person is neglecting the child or the home there has to be a healthy balance and remember that once you marry you form that unity so there are certain things that you should not be discussing because it's a privacy of you and that individual that's not to say that you're to be kept from doing sharing with your family the joys of life i want to go visit my sister for a few days see you later bye obviously you're going to discuss it because you got to clear with your work your husband if you have children you just can't do that but you should be able to have the freedom to say i want to do this today or tomorrow and the person i say okay not limit your every action not ease drop on your conversation not be jealous of your interaction there's men that are jealous of the interaction of women with other women i'm talking to my female friend and he's jealous about my time that i share with that person and what i'm sharing there has to be healthy boundaries that person cannot be your everything some people want to believe that but that's not healthy your everything should be god next one i think i touched that when i said your everything should be god but we're going to talk on spiritual and sex next one verbal again the words coming out of their mouth should uplift you should encourage you and should empower you anything else is not healthy and and like i say honesty and transparency is very key next slide i want i want you guys to understand this concept here how often do we say i'm sorry all the time right i'm sorry about this i'm sorry about that i'm sorry i'm sorry how much healthier would it be then instead of saying i'm sorry i'm late you can say what thank you for waiting i'm sorry i've been needing what's the alternative i don't hear you thank you thank you for being supportive i'm sorry to ask another favor you could say thank you for helping me out i'm sorry i made a mistake what is the alternative thank you for helping me improve i'm sorry i can't come tonight thank you for the invitation i'm sorry for being emotional i'm sorry i've been withdrawn and i'm sorry i didn't understand that's a form of healthy communication this form the other side you're always apologizing how can you live that way to say i'm sorry is to take responsibility for that action or those words and it's to take say that i am at fault and that's not necessarily true now there are some friends i have who take three hours to get ready and they're always late that's a different story [Laughter] they're just that way but within a toxic relationship or any relationship choose your words think about how you express yourself if you're always on the left side meaning this side you need to rewire how you think about stuff about yourself and about your relationship because if you're always apologizing then then there's something wrong there okay i don't i don't know how better how else to put it there's just something wrong if you're always apologizing next one listen to this he hit her with shame he slapped her with accusations he choked her with silence he pinched her with contempt he slammed her with betrayal he smothered her in humiliation he twisted her with mind games he strangled her with isolation he brewster with false guilt he tortured her with false hope he blasted her with false shame he whipped her with criticism he beat her with past mistake he restrained her with self-doubt he raped her with his addiction and he pushed her past human limits but he never touched her he never touched her that's why the definitions of violence extends to intent as we discussed yesterday next slide silence does not bring transformation silence does not facilitate healing silence does not save the lambs and silence is not part of the biblical process of forgiveness it's not next slide so i skipped over sex on the other slides because we're going to touch on this the first time i heard this term i'm gonna be honest with you was years ago and it took me by surprise that it existed because growing up in the church and looking at certain verses it is what it is a relationship you're together and you subject to one another and as a teenager growing up in a very um in a church that that used the word of god for everything you were made to believe that if you marry you are your husband's property right and so there are some churches that still use this and so when i heard about this term i was in college and i was very surprised and it was in a conversation that i was having with someone who told me that they just had been married and that she felt like she was being raped in her relationship and she said she had google stuff and she came upon this term so i want us to read this together because when you read and you speak it out it tends to ingrain in your in your mind a little bit better so let's read it together sex becomes the weapon the vehicle to accomplish the desire result which is to overwhelm overpower embarrass and humiliate another person all non-consexual sex is rape whether it takes place within a marriage or any other relationship the u.s mayoral rape is illegal in all 50 states is it only 30 states 20 50 states right that's the definition of marital rape and it is in our laws and it is considered a crime let's go into detail of what it is not next slide it's essential for us to also clarify what matter of sexual abuse is not to have differences in your sexual appetite and comfort levels is normal so it's normal to have differences and have different appetites it's normal you rarely find someone who has the same level of as you do when it comes to the appetite and your preferences in a healthy relationship couples can discuss even debate their different physical desires without pressure fear and or rejection so without what pressure fear or rejection spouse should be able to express different preferences without either of them imposing their desire on the other in the form of a demand next one when our homes are structured on the concept of power and control we unwittingly perpetuate this cycle back into the community and it goes back to children what we discussed yesterday children see what happens in the home they will understand what is love what is sex and all that stuff by the interaction of the parents and those children grow up and according to the statistics we discussed yesterday they will tend to repeat the same thing or and or enter into abusive relationship it repeats the cycle aggression anger and hopelessness is the only thing you get out of these this type of interaction next we simply seek to hold the power of god without possessing the character of god does anybody know what that's talking about we seek to hold the power of god without possessing the character of god we use the scriptures as a third as an authority to demand what we want and we're not in the spirit of god because god is not any of this okay next one these are the bible verses that are used to control first corinthians 7 4 who wants to read that one for me let the husband render to his wife the affection due her and likewise also the wife to her husband the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does okay that's okay so four yeah so verse four is what they take out of there right only verse four but if you're a student of the scripture you know to look at things within the context correct so let the husband render to his wife the affection due to her affection right and likewise the wife but you take that one out you read four and you leave all the rest down what does it say from five down do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourself to fasting and prayer and come together again so that satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control but i see this as a concession not as a commandment but i say this as a concession not as a commandment next one first peter 3 1. they take verse one somebody read verse one okay wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word they without a word may be worn by the conduct of their wives okay two things it opens up first peter chapter three verse one opens up wives likewise what is he talking about because it opens up likewise to what but what is he referring to yes what's your name lionel he got a he hit it right on the spot what he was referring to in the previous chapter chapter two and he's talking about jesus so if you're gonna start with this verse you need to go back to peter chapter two but then you can also go down to verse 7 in the same chapter and it says what husbands likewise draw with them with understanding giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being his together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be endured two things give honor if you're giving honor are you committing any of the acts we just spoke about no right and so that your prayers will not be so we bypass the honor i would not want my prayers to be hindered that is a serious issue i would like to have my communication with god but you need to give honor and honor is not in any of the things we just discussed next one this is the famous ephesians 5. oh yeah wives submit to your own husband as to the lord for the husband is the head of the wife as also christ is the head of the church and is the savior of the body therefore just as the church is subject to christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything so it's saying to subject right be submissive correct now it's both bent right thank you thank you the part that's missing is the bottom part husbands love your wives just as and he did what if you have a spouse that would do anything and give him or herself for you would you have any issue being submissive to that spouse because they have then you know that they have your best interests at heart right that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself as a glorious church not having a spot not having a bruise not having a broken arm not having a black eye okay or wrinkle of any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish so husbands are to love their own wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself if i go to the gym and i work out and i take care of myself and i take the time to do so then you should also be able to do that with your for your spouse to hate your spouse according to the description is to hate yourself love her or him like you do yourself basically saying there if a spouse meets one two or three or all of them how many of you would resist how many of you would say i'm not going to subject myself to this man if i have a husband or a wife that is this way with emphasis on husband because we're talking about um domestic violence i will have no issue submitting myself to that person because this is the epitome of love willing to die for you like god died for the church and sacrifice himself again going back to your understanding of who you are as a child of christ and if for some reason you can still find an argument for why you want to do what you want to do with your spouse against their will i'm going to go and read this to you first corinthians 6 verse 19 through 20. first corinthians chapter 6 verse 19 through 20. do you not know that your bodies are temple of the holy spirit who is who is in you who whom you have received from god you are not your own if the person standing before you is the temple of the holy spirit who is in god and who is received from god and is your body is not your own right your body is the temple of the holy spirit are you going to defile that temple because committing the acts of abuse and violence pornography addiction affairs subjugation what are you doing to that temple are you destroying it or lifting it up in first corinthians 3 16-17 first corinthians chapter 3 16-17 do you know that you yourselves are god's temple and that god's spirit dwells in your midst if anyone destroys god's temple god will destroy that person for god's temple is sacred and you together are that temple so it says it what is saying that you yourself are god's temple and the god spirit dwells in your midst if anyone destroys god's temple he will do what destroy that person so we're going to use the bible let's use it clearly let's understand what it's saying okay next slide god's light came into the world but people loved the darkness more than the light for their actions were evil and who all who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for the fear for fear their sins will be exposed are we living in this time has the heart of man growing cold do they love evil and darkness over light and what god has spoken next verse when we follow the desires of our sinful nature the results are very clear read what those results are for me read them with me sexual immorality impurity lustful pleasures idolatry sorcery hostility quarreling jealousy upwards of anger selfish ambition dissension division envy drunkenness wild parties and other sins likewise you can go ahead and read the rest if you like that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of god does that cover what we just talked about in the last two days that is everything we have spoken about is here so you cannot tell me by using the bible that your actions are okay there's no way that verse is very clear they will not inherit the kingdom of god and i'll leave you with that thank you amen hey man amen that was such a blessing come from sister tamara bird so right now we're going to have our q a so we're going to open up the floor so that you guys can ask questions so if you have any questions please feel free to come to the mics they're going to set up some mics so you can be able to ask the questions and we're going to have sister sandra lee as well as tamara bird answering questions as well as mr bishop pastor rhetoric bishop so you guys can come up right now so if you have any questions you want to ask feel free to ask i'll be moderating it so if you want to text a private question you can text my number i'm going to say it for you guys it's 862 two three one zero nine nine nine once again is eight six two two three one zero nine nine nine and we really want you guys interactions because we want to be able to answer these questions that you have even if it's for someone else it may not necessarily be you but it may be someone sitting next to you that is being abused and they need help so feel free to ask the questions and if you want to ask i'm going to be looking at my phone oh number again sorry it's eight six two two three one zero nine nine nine so we wanna give gothic praises and all the glory so i'm going to open up in prayer before we start this session because we want god to be in our mix one more mic and if we can have two mics set up so in just in case they want to ask questions we can have it and vicky sorry i did forget her all right let us pray dear eternal father thank you so much for this time that was well spent father god we pray that you are in our presence father god you said with two atria get it you are here also so we are seeking your face at this time as we open up this q a session as we ask questions father god may your corey prevail father god may you speak through each and every one of um on this um stage father god i pray that you go before them i pray that they do not answer any question that does not come from your word father god lord jesus i pray that you forgive me for anything i may have done that may hinder any of these prayers that i'm lifting up unto you father god in jesus most precious name i pray amen so let us start um let me see if anyone put any questions otherwise i'll go to my question but i do want to say let us open up the doors that are hiding our little dirty secrets as sandra lee said and let us give our baggages unto christ and christ alone if we took anything from this message this morning that is a message we need to keep and hold on to so um do anyone have any questions we can start with one of the audience yes you can stand up and speak so um my question for miss tamara um i had um you said uh you're gonna touch a little bit on you know all ages but you didn't really get to like elderly so what are some of the signs of elderly abuse you know because as you know you age you have to kind of like watch out for your parents and people trying to scam them and you know different type things like that but what are some of the signs that you look for so with elderly abuse it's there are no outro signs that you can see unless they've been injured or hurt and you can see it manifested on them physically but they do experience the same form of abuse verbal sexual physical and financial financial is a big one for elderly because a lot of times what happens is like you say they're scams and they get ripped off but it also comes from within the care whoever the caregiver is especially if it's a family member and so they will try to take control of their finances they will misuse their finances and even try to bring them home and declare them on fit to take control over their lives so we look at financial and we look at their health the most important thing you could do for an elderly is to make sure they're visiting their physician in the sense that they get to monitor what is going on with the person and sometimes you don't even example i had a patient who came in and he didn't have a fever but he was having some issues we ran labs he had a raging infection because we did some labs so then from there we go why has this been so long and to find out that the caregiver had neglected to provide the proper proper medical care to this elderly so it is hard to know with elderly especially if they're demented because they're not all there and it's tricky so like i said there's nothing specific but and abuse are very key in the elderly and the only way for you to know is to be involved in their every aspect of life and if you suspect it then you your trust your instinct amen thank you for that answer sister tamara so we have a question it says what do you do if a person suffer abuse because they are afraid of divorce and this question can be for each of you guys if you want to answer or whoever wants to take this one can take it feel free anyone i had a conversation with a friend and we went back and forth i remember um this was in college and we went back and forth and we were like what is the right thing to do um should the mother stay in the marriage for the sake of the children should she continue to be you know stay in the marriage it could be physical abuse emotional abuse for the sake of the children or should she leave because in her situation her mother stayed in my situation my mother left not she left but she she had to leave and so we looked at our lives and the result of our lives what should what's the right thing to do because staying sometimes you are you are exemplifying that it's okay and your daughters grow up with my mom did it i need to stay leaving you could also be exposing your children to harm so i i mean i think this could be a situational thing um but ultimately we cannot stay and take it i love the the emphasis tamara gave silence is not a is not a solution you cannot take it i i love her emphasis on the fact that you are god's creation no one has the right to control you i mean who bought you who whose blood was shed for you jesus no one no one has the right and so i believe that it's important to do what is best not just for the situation there but also if their children involved um it's it's it's it can get tricky one once one size one rule doesn't fit all but it's important for the mother not to continue to be abused or have the children remain in an abusive situation and perhaps others can comment i did mention girls but i also think boys too if boys are in a relationship because the boys will emulate the behavior and also then learn to copy the fact that their mother stayed with an abusive father because remember in a relationship they think that that's the reality for the most part what you're exposed to so it is a bad situation and like the sister said and tamara explained earlier if a woman is in a financial situation to leave and maintain a healthy lifestyle for her children she would most likely leave it's usually the woman that does not or cannot financially maintain the lifestyle say for instance she might not be able to buy a car or work at the same time and afford an apartment and keep the kids in school so she will probably be forced to stay until she thinks that um they're older to then perhaps leave because if you're in abusive relationship and you have a three-year-old and a four-year-old and maybe a seven-year-old that is quite difficult they're almost all going to need uh daycare and all of that babysitter so if you're just um working a part-time job there's no way that you can leave so but if you're a doctor or somebody who's very professional and you can continue a lifestyle without you you know having to eat ramen noodles until they're ready to go off to college then that woman and if she's emotionally strong too because there are women that are able to leave they have the financial ability but they've been abused so much emotionally that they will sit and take it uh but again it comes down to the fact that like the sister said god loves us and we are created in the image of god and god doesn't abuse us he wants us to have a better life and it is unfortunate that that happens in homes that are so-called christian homes but in any event um there should be some sort of intervention because it is it even if the children can if you grow up in the home the emotional damage still takes a toll amen and going back to like you said it's circumstantial so if you have no children it's different than if you do have children and when children come into play into this situation there's more damage done by you staying than leaving and you will be surprised that when you are in a situation where you have to leave mothers are very resilient we tend to find a way to do things for our children and for ourselves sometimes we're so battered and we don't know so you have to seek out help but i would not advise that if you are in a violent relationship and there are children present to stay i'm not telling you to divorce you can't separate and then seek the counseling they you guys all need because the children will need counseling and you don't want to put the children of risk of getting abused because often not what happens is the abuse happens to you but there is another form of abuse happening happening to the children so there's outlets out there that you should venture looking into to see how you can step away from that and if you don't want to divorce that's your choice but separate find the constantly find what you need and maybe then you can come back together before you before you continue one of the things that that you mentioned and i think we ought to speak about is the fact that their expectations um their cultural expectations as well as religious expectations so while we say that so much then people are concerned how will my community how will my church receive me how will this how because to be honest we put a higher premium than people who are married and people who are single and divorced i mean just in the way we structure ministries and so um i think that oftentimes that yes somebody should make a decision but they're thinking how will my own family see me not even my blood family how will they receive me because the expectation that i should stay married regardless of what's going on because you're going to bring shame on us our name is important more than more than my physical well-being the name is more important i think that that is something that we we need to talk about more openly because it's it's about how how how i'm perceived should i make a decision amen i just want to read something it says children who witness are are victims of emotional physical or sexual abuse are at a higher risk for health problems as adults these can include mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety it also includes diabetes obesity heart disease poor self-esteem and other problems so by staying in these situations you may actually be hindering your child's development so we want to keep that in mind for the ones who have children who may be going through abuse so i'm going to take another question and i'm going to try to get to everyone's question so just bear with me the next question is how do you heal a family that lived for years in abuse with children only knowing abuse and i'm going to go to the second part of this question because it kind of ties into what we're talking about how do you heal a family that fell even to the form of talk of suicidal attempts in the home so i'll get that one starting off with um sister tamara i believe you touched a lot on that in your um presentation today so i'll give that question to you so the steps to healing the first step is to walk away and acknowledge that it's okay to say enough is enough the second step is twofold you need to understand where you are as a child of god so you need spiritual counseling and then you need professional counseling as well you need a good family system to support you through this it's not going to be easy and understand that the this is going to be an uphill battle for a while it may not address everything it may not come out perfectly like you want it but just taking that first step towards recovery is the most essential but you do need to acknowledge that you need both spiritual healing because now your concept of god and your children's concept of god and love has been altered and you need professional counseling to help you through that and if there's any physical harm then you need to seek care for yourself as well for whatever harm has come i don't know if if any of your other panelists want to answer that question it's a long question can you repeat the question again yes give me just a moment it says how do you heal a family that live for years in abuse with the children only knowing abuse how do you heal a family that fell even to the form of talk of suicidal attempts in a home i think this is i mean i was driving home from the meeting in galveston last night our evangelistic mina says listen i said but you know whatever questions are going to be asked she's answering the questions in the presentation and even today one of the things i think there's some teas that we need we need to talk about it it needs to be time it needs sometimes it needs to be some form of treatment and then the person has to learn to to trust again but that that that is there's no time frame for that and i think sometimes we we force that on on people talking is important i want to add something that we probably we touched on i think sister bird touched in that and that is generational issues all right um there's a good book out there it's an old book it's the secrets of your family tree and i forgot the name of the author but it looks at the family of david right it looked at and it looked at abraham and you find in abraham's family that from abraham isaac jacobson all light and is making the point that sometimes the generational issues that the current generation is not aware because in some cultures we don't talk about it until someone gets into trouble then somebody says oh you're like your great-grandfather you like nobody talked about it um and i think sometimes that is that that will help um in in some situations but you know there are things that are truly generational and it might be embarrassing but we need to talk about it yeah i want to just piggyback on what pastor bridget just said because that was one of the things i was going to mention because um i was in an accident a couple of years ago so i have to have massages from my back so there's this young lady that i went to have a massage by and i've had massages with her three times and you know as a child of god the holy spirit will give you certain impressions so i went to have one during the week and as i was leaving the holy spirit told me to take a steps to christ so but the name of this one was real peace real answers so typically we engage while we're talking i mean while she's doing the massage or whatever and so she's like so what are you doing this weekend and i told her i was coming here and vice versa and what was the topic and i could feel the change in her energy and um she stopped and she told me she says i was abused and i said i know because i did and she said how do you know and i had to should i take a minute because you know as a child of god when you're talking to people they sometimes could get freaked out when you say stuff like that but she she knows that i'm a christian and whatever and um long story short i spend the hour counseling her and um she told me just like pastor bishop said her father was abusive to her her mother was abused it was it was just a vicious chain and she'd been in these relationships and i mean she's a beautiful young woman exteriorly and i know internally she's always very friendly but i could pick up on the abuse and she just cried and she says i drink and i don't know how to break the circle and i and i want peace and so i i said i brought a book for you and she says how did you know that i said the lord you know and i was talking to her and she started asking me about the church that i go to when i gave it to her again you know this is steps to christ but the name of it was real answers real peace something that she says i love the images she's a psychology student but brethren what i'm saying is is that just as pastor bishop mentioned abuse is never it does not ever begin with one person it's usually because if you read the accounts of abraham and all them you will see that they were making the same mistakes it's the same mistakes and you know satan is consistent he realizes this works and he sticks to it and it's for us as children of god to see and recognize it because somebody has to be willing to stand in the gap and pray and break that cycle [Music] i want to say to the person that asked the question whether you're here or online this road is not going to be easy especially with children acknowledge your hurt and acknowledge the fact of what has been done to you because if you don't acknowledge that you cannot heal the same for the children but the most important thing is this is your road to healing it's not it's not your parents it's not your friends it's not anybody else's but your road to healing there's no time frame and there's no right or wrong you will have emotional rollercoasters ups and downs setbacks and forward don't look in the internet don't look at people to tell you how you should grieve this is your grief this is your journey you take the time and the support that you need to go through this amen and also you know for the children's sake because sometimes when they see you taking this abuse they think that god condones it which is totally not true and so they they feel that god cannot protect them what is the purpose of praying to god what is the purpose of having a relationship with god when he just stays there and have mom you know be beaten up or us being beaten up or dad keeps drinking or whatever because there are people that come to church that still drink there are people that come to church that still smoke and do drugs that's just it's a fact you know we continue to pray for them but this is a reality and when they see this type of hypocrisy they think that god condones it so you need to you need to like sister tamara say walk away and show them that god is really not about that and just to add one more thing i think this is where the power of love comes in sometimes god brings someone to that person that shows them what love and acceptance is and that love then begins to heal the scars and that person starts to understand wow i can feel love i am loved and and and and it's a blessing so i believe that you know we need to look out for people around us as a church who is hurting who can we encourage who can we put arms around who can we talk to especially if you have gone through it yourself you understand what they are going through i believe that each person in that home has to go on their own journey and sometimes some people do and some people don't and you can always see it cascades into the ones who don't you see they carry on to the next generation but some actually find healing every single one who has experienced that must go through that journey of healing and only god can really take away those hurts and and discuss amen thank you so much ladies and gents um i just wanted to say that i really like what you said a while ago because sometimes you can take that brokenness and turn it into something positive and then go off into helping and healing others it may become your sole passion to then pour into others so don't look at your abuse as something that broke you and hinder you take that and turn that into a blessing where you can bless so many people god is with the inflicted and god god gives you these things so that you can then bless others that's why we have testimony so just think of that as something that can empower another person so i wanted to move on to our next question it says a situation where a man says he is hot tempered he outed out on the wife and sent her to a hotel took her own key what advice i guess uh they're talking about a situation that happened where a man was hot tempered and he um outed i guess that means shouted at his wife and sent her to a hotel and took her keys so it's a very bad abusive situation that this woman is in what is your advice to the individual that may be in this situation anyone can take this one i yeah i'm guessing that he kicked her out of the house it's a situation abusive situation that a woman's in so i'm guessing he might have put her out of the house and he calls her to go into a hotel what is your advice and he took her keys so he's taken from her i think one one characteristics you find in people who are abused is that they tend to want to isolate the person they're abusing from those around them they isolate them from their parents isolate them from their friends they sell them for their family because then they can really you know continue to control them and so i said this is where the power of connection and support comes in you need to have a girlfriend a friend someone to reach out to and tell them this is what i'm going through then that person can help you get help and so in that sense if someone says takes the wife and you know you know shout out to her and you know takes her you know out and sends out to motel call a friend call a pastor call someone you can trust and let them know what you're going through and and and stop you know this isolation because the key is isolate the person i see the person and then you can you can just beat them down so call someone don't go through what you're going through alone that's the tattoos of the devil isolate and conquer you know i think one of the things that was highlighted earlier by tamara is that these people are actually very intimidated bullies are usually very scared they really have low self-esteem and you have to really kind of get them backed up into a corner like i had a friend and this was a kind of a cultural relationship too and her husband used to beat the daylights out of her i mean there'd be times when she'd have to sleep with her sons and when they got old enough then they would kind of stand up to their dad and kind of like fight him off and sometimes she would be scrambling all under the bed running from this man and then when she got to a place one day she started picking up herself she got herself a little business she started doing little things and when she started earning money she started feeling empowered and i'm not advising anybody to do this but this is this is a culture this is the trinidadian culture so and they're not advents okay let me put up let me let me put this out there yes yes but as he fired verbally she fights she learned to fire back i'm not saying to do that but what i'm trying to say is eventually that same person stopped hitting her he stopped hitting her she got her own business she started controlling money she started doing different things she couldn't go from here to there without him being with her or one of the children being with her and if she was going there it's because she was going to meet a man or she was going to meet this or whatever now she goes all over the world she goes all over they're still married they're still married and actually they're starting to do a bit better because she stood her ground she she she got up and she started empowering herself now that does not always be the case tamara might have more statistics but i'm saying a lot of times these people they are really deep down inside very intimidated as she highlighted and they try to keep you down so that they don't really show you how scared they really are yes it's true that they are very insecure and therefore they behave that way with the person that they can control which is yourself but as we read up there 75 percent of the time what was the number 75 percent the higher you're at the most risk of being violently attacked including murder when you're trying to leave so that the story is awesome and it has a good ending often not that's not the case if you're ready to stand up for yourself make sure you have the police right next to you okay and i say that because this week there was a situation that i was called into she had enough she wanted to leave i said you have the right to leave call the police tell them what's the situation have them go to you do a home visitation get your stuff they'll monitor the person and you leave she had a place to go she had saved money she wasn't not a lot of money but enough and she already had a plan which we had talked about when she went the police was waiting for her to go into the home they put the spouse out she grabbed the stuff and she left the next step was to put a restraining order it's an emergency restraining order you don't have to prove anything for an emergency restraining order all you have to do is that you have the fear that the person is going to harm you you say that they give an emergency restraining order and then then later on they set a date for you to go before the court to see if they will hold up that emergency restraining order or not but those are the two steps that i would advise you if you're in a domestic violence relationship when you're ready have the authorities follow you take what you need take the children take the birth certificate social security every documentation you need their clothes move out there's shelters that will help you as well if you don't have a place to go file with that same police at the same day file the emergency restraining order and have it served that's at no cost to you okay i don't advise to for you to confront someone especially if you know they're going to retaliate because then you and defense end up having to use a weapon and now it gets a little bit muddy right now we're going to the courts because you have attacked your offender who now is going to claim himself as a victim and it has happened so but you you know bullying is a little bit different it's still violent versus domestic violence so that's what i would say if you're in a hotel be careful they're not stalking you and watching your every move this may be the escalating phase they're watching to see what you do who you call where you go so they know where you're going to go find shelter and so they know who you're going to contact and then they'll use that to go find you when you leave so you have to be aware that they're not stalking you and then if you can get away hey ma'am i'm going to move on to the next question this person asks is this a form of spiritual warfare so i guess they're asking is this abuse a form of spiritual warfare and should they be praying and fasting for the effectiveness of it that's tomorrow's presentation [Laughter] um and i'll just say this um our default is always to pray and we should but you've got to move beyond prayer right god is not going to do everything he is going to lead you in direct but there's things that you have to do so we'll talk about that some more uh about that tomorrow morning thank you so we have a question out on the floor yes i have a quick question um what type of services does i don't know if any of you are affiliated with the domestic violence women's shelter but what type of assistance can they give for a woman that's an abusive situation that may not have all the money and you know what type of help can they give them i think sister ebola may have devola that's always good to have a good assistant yeah so really we have this okay this is well informative like very detailed and it's going to give you all the full information as to what the woman shelter does okay we took our time to really put out the line not the national line the local line and by the way we went on visits to the women's shelter uh muja has been a very regular volunteer with them okay and there are so many things they can offer so i can just say when you're going just take this sheet and it's really really very detailed yeah amen can you can you go over a little bit for those that are online okay okay i was just oh michael sorry okay so i was just saying that the question is as to what does the woman shelter does and what can we do what step do we take further especially when someone is going through this violence so i was trying to say that we have been able to pull some um maybe i'll give it to the av team they can show it we have the different shelters that we have local shelters here for us for everyone that is here and we do have the national one but we want to make sure that we address this locally so we have this i'll give it to the av team so that they can show it to our online viewers in case you do need to make a call and get the detailed information like when we went to the women's shelter i spoke with them they are ready to answer your question i was able to chat with them and had some information and they answered me especially regarding the fact that the women ministry want to be having a kind of collaboration to be visiting them and doing some health but they do have if you remember when we went for outreach we gave uh some food some clothings i used to tell people there's no free lunch anywhere some people are doing it so that's why they get a lot of food clothings money and they do help people they provide homes for them they give them what they need to to have to meet their immediate needs and nobody knows where they are staying that's why we couldn't take you guys there nobody knows where any woman that has been abused is stained because they want to keep them safe thank you for sharing that information i just wanted to say that is true and i do volunteer at mini um domestic violence shelter i do actual program with them so it is a secluded area we are not allowed to share the location so if anyone is in the situation you can reach out and keep everything confidential they do move you in the night and you are placed in another location and that abuser cannot find you unless you actually reach out and make contact with them so just keep that in mind she will also just put those numbers up on the screen so that if anyone needs it if you are at home and you're scared to leave and you may think that it's a financial situation how are you going to support yourself there are people out there willing to help you and support you in your time of need so do look at these numbers that we will put on the screen soon also if you're not able to use your phone and make a phone call because they're monitoring your every move if you can go to the bathroom or at night or somewhere that you're safe you can enter into some of these websites that are for domestic violence and when you open the website it tells you that they don't do cookies they don't do tracking and if for some reason the perpetrator comes in you click on this x right there on the top right corner and it clears so you can go do your research they will help you facilitate do those what's called the transition of care and all of that and you can terminate that link if they happen to come in at like just click and it disappears and it's not in the history they can't find it they can't track it so if you're not able to make the call use the services online from some of these websites like reign and domestic violence.org thank you for sharing that we have another question it says the bible's name adultery as an acceptable reason to divorce could the physical mental emotional financial and other abuses be considered a forms of adultery supported by the scriptures and anyone can take that it's a long question so abuse i think recently abuse abuse certainly um because if if you extend it out with everything that you said then anything basically could be the the grounds for divorce which brings the brings the question as ministers some of the challenges that we have because each situation is different so you may have a broad um not broad but you may have something that's narrows to the grounds but someone comes in who's an abusive situation they're in danger um you know if as ministers we're not versed and we're not educated and abused and which i think we should be you can make a mistake in terms of what you're saying to the person that's before you and that has happened i was just reading this this morning in australia's woman who came into her minister because what the research shows is that when the person feels threatened when they feel that their life that's when one of the first things they'll do is go to the minister right um she went and they said oh no no no the brother was in the church and so on no go back and he killed him right he killed her so i think you've got to be sensitive to what is being said take don't you know take what is being said as a truth and give the advice or guidance based on the health of the individual a lot of times we we trap by what what this says and what you should say instead of what is before you and make what is a common sense um decision or giving common sense direction so you know i i hear that question but i also think that you you need to deal with the situation that is that is before you're not worried about well is are you my supervisor those above me gonna say this you you're dealing with the person there you can deal with them later on but you deal with the person and if a life is preserved nobody's gonna say anything negative or there are no consequences for that so i i think that oftentimes you've got to deal with the situation that's be that's before you one of the things that we we're not talking about and this evening is is that men who abused i mean that is you talked about it but it happens it happens and what what is difficult about that as a man it is difficult for a man to come in to anyone and say i'm being abused and described first he can't go to his friends because they're going to say what kind of man are you right that's the first thing right um what kind of man are you you can't stand up you can't speak for yourself you can't defend that that happened but it's happening and i say that for is the consequence for the boys in the home if their sons their consequences for them i'll give you an example um when i was a member of church in new york we're there at lunch and the deacon one of the deacons comes in and he shows us some meter he's an electrician some meter he uses his wife broken it was important it was expensive she broke it he said he says i come here to talk to you guys because i'm angry we talked with him and so he said what do you want to do he said well there's no way to go i'm going home instead of so for four hours the guy sat with him and then was time to go home nobody wanted to go so my friend and i we said okay we'll go with you and we went with him so we get to the house and the wife opens she has a meat cleaver she's cleaning stuff and she's just going back and forth like this and we asked him he said do you want to stay here i say yeah okay so then she says he can stay in the basement as long as he doesn't come upstairs he's fine and so then he we asked him again do you really want to stay say yeah i'm going to stay and so he said we said if there's any problem you can call us or what have you like but they eventually divorced but this was a situation where we found that this was going on for a while and he finally it got to the point where he felt listen i'm going to come to the church and talk to the brothers the second case before you take you know i'm another friend who's serving 15 years in prison in atlanta 15 years he went in at 40. so he's not no chance of parole until for 12 years he's going to come out of 52. and because i'm not mentioning his name it's ok he met someone who was professional he didn't have a child she didn't have a child i'm describing i said this is this has happened to a man he's running the new york marathon with his sister she flies in to meet him he says to her i'm going to be late because i want to see my sister finish she says i'm going back we say to him that's a red flag you're waiting for your sister to finish the math there's no anyway he marries her they haven't they don't have children they try to have children they don't have children they find out it's not an issue with him it's an issue to her she says that's it a mom persuades him or in in persists that they try and work it out listen to this he's on his way to the house he's talking with them on the phone he's talking about violence and as he's going in he still has a key to the house he's going in she's cooking his wife they still married the mom is on the phone and as he opens the door and she sees him she begins to throw the pot and anything at him the mom hears and thinks her daughter's in trouble she calls the police but this time he he has to grab because she's just throwing so when they come and they see him grabbing a holding and she says he's assaulting her she says he came to burn the house down she says all of these things and he's arrested she's a she's an attorney she's connected he can't get the best defense lawyer i know this guy not a violent guy 15 years we don't hear about it right it's not it's not common for guys but it's happening my friends and while it's not in the same numbers on in terms of ladies it's happening to guys it can happen to your sons so i'm just making your word the devil doesn't care who what is men or woman as long as he can inflict damage he will and that's all i want to shoot amen thanks for sharing that we have like a couple more questions we want to cover and then i'll have you guys do your final um remarks for if it's someone out there facing abuse what would be your final words to them and how you can encourage them so let me go to this question it says what recommendations do you have for the church people when they stumble on information that another person is being an abuse of a situation many times church people only pray what do you have to share with the church sisters and brothers they meet when people are in abusive situations and anyone can take that i can say that and you may correct me if i'm wrong but we are not well equipped to meet the needs of people who are in domestic violence or abusive situations we're not i attend a church where i don't know if you remember a few years ago it made not the national news of a doctor who works in md anderson she used to come to our church with her child often not no grandma would bring the child because they would have dispute about having the child go to church the weekend the crime occurred that saturday night we were having gym night and she was with us and she was supposed to stay with us and then go to her mom's house with the child she got a phone call her spouse i don't know what transpired i could tell she was in distress she said she had to go home i still remember that night and i said because we just finished uh setting up the marriage ministry in the church and we did a survey and one of the servers came back anonymously no names and it had a red flag come to find out after the fact that it happens to be this person she went home with the child and the gentleman proceeded to assault her stab her and follow her through the house with the child in the house the next morning we get the call and i and you think about how we fail and you realize that as a church we're not ready we're not ready i am all for prayer and i do believe god can move mountains but i also believe god equips us with the intelligence and the knowledge and the tools that are available to us to use them so if for some reason you feel that the church is not meeting your needs then step up step outside of the church and find the help you need but as a church sometimes we don't we're just not equipped and and i don't want to call it that we just don't care or we're neglecting i think it's just we it's like we live so sheltered for so long it's it's we're always seem to be a little bit behind we're playing catch-up you know and also cultural religious culture we try to we come home we come to church in our dress we all sit there we smile we are happy they ask you how are you doing i'm doing well and you're not right but the children are perfect you're dressed perfect we're all happy if we were to be a true church we will be able to come here and come to each other and say i'm hurting i need help can you help me without the fear being judged without the fear being ostracized so it's a two-fold we're not equipped professionally and the other thing is we're not willing to admit when we're going through these difficulties because of the culture and the religious culture but this is the hospital and god said he came to say he who did he come for the perfect right the sick and we need to start behaving like that we need to be able to have these communications these conversations i also believe that as a church the bible says bear each other's burdens we can live for ourselves we can't be too focused on our own lives our own you know problems our own challenges that we are not caring and being concerned about our other brothers and sisters and when they come to us for to confide in us we start throwing them cliches and scriptures or like you said i'll pray for you um i love the question you asked about but what if they say but the bible speaks only of adultery as the only condition to to um to divorce this is true what would you say if a friend came to to you like one came to me and she said um vicky i am leaving my husband my first reaction was this is not good because these are their two little kids in the picture but then she starts to confine to me that she has been in depression for over two years she's been taking depression medications and the inherent thing is that she's afraid of her husband that he's going to harm her it was so bad that they would go for counseling and at the point the counselor had to delay and extend the session because she did not trust that she was safe driving home with the husband she tells me that she went to um to they went to the husband said i won't get it i want to get a car uh expensive car and she's like you know that's not what she wants he drove to the dealership he picks the car and she doesn't want the car i mean that's not what she is seeking and she said that on the way back home she at the point in the on the trip she knew her life that she was not going to leave the next day and she said no let's go back and get the car and that was what pacified him and so for fear of her life she's leaving the marriage what would you say to her would you say no sister um i pray for you no sister you have to stay the bible says is on the grounds of adultery is is that what you say to her no so at the end of the day you know god has called us as a church i may not you know i'm not a doctor and i don't know how to deal with someone in the professionally but i can point someone i can point her to a counselor i can point her to a doctor i can call for help i i am i'm in a state where i can think when she's not thinking and i can seek for help for her i don't have to cancel her i can listen to her i can call to check upon her i can let her talk to me but i can get her help amen i think on the book the desire of ages says that we are not to leave our brother or sister on the grounds of the enemy for the enemy for satan to completely destroy them uh just kind of paraphrasing there but it is true as a church we have a culture of god and we know that god is supreme and god is the one who heals and and all of that but we live in a broken world and as i mentioned you know this morning there are times when we need the church is full of doctors and psychologists and clinicians and and all these people that can bring about intervention it is god that give man the wisdom to be able to do these things because you recognize that we're living in a fallen state and that the mind of people need to be redirected the unfortunate thing is that we feel more shame in the church that's where the problem comes in people are afraid to let people in church know and sometimes when there are people with a problem we just want to just just move aside behave if we are being honest we really don't want to take the time to find out how we could bring about healing for that person we like it sometimes and you know we will be in church and somebody will walk away from church they will leave the church for a period of time and nobody will check on them or visit them or whatever but when they come back and they give a big testimony then we woo but we never really went out and went after them and that is the same thing we have to be mindful of the fact that god gave us doctors attorneys you know psychologists psychiatrists and and there are times when people generally need to be medicated there needs to be counseling and intervention and and it is not just a matter of like because sometimes people go away feeling well i'm so bad that um i just have to pray and sometimes in that condition they really cannot pray and and like the sister said we need to pray for them but we also need for them to get professional help so the a hurting person is not necessarily it's not a defective person right and so a lot of times people are hurting because of the language within their their circle they feel defective so if i say this then i'm defective and defective people then are marginalized one of the reasons people don't talk is because they're part of the conversation how we talk about other people and so if you're talking about other people what are you going to say about me so then i how why should i talk to you so there are people in our church that will seek counseling from another denomination because if they come i mean come on the grapevine just runs 24 hours and it's out there um so again we it this talking but this weekend we didn't really deal with it in depth but i would suspect in the future you can deal with the whole issue of trauma trauma is big there are more a lot of people are sitting here to this evening and sitting here who have been traumatized but the church should be a place where anyone who's feeling these things experiencing these things it should be a safe place we say it but we don't do anything to facilitate it right because your trauma is not your truth right not the sum total of who you are and the other thing is french forgiveness doesn't mean we're going to have a friendship right if i forgive doesn't mean that we're going to be friends but but there's a language in the church which makes it intimidating for someone to say this is where i that i am because i'm supposed to say on sabbath morning happy sabbath even though i'm hurting the other thing i would say the reason that we don't want to extend ourselves because once the lid comes off you don't know how much stuff is under the lid so so when the lid comes off when you get a peak you're running because it means that i may have to invest time in this person's experience and not willing because i've got kids to take care of i've got a job i don't have time we've got to change that sister tamara i agree with you we're not trained for that but doesn't mean that we can have training to make our churches more sensitive to the needs that come i'll give you an example when i was at andrews i went i was in the not knocking the institution because i went to the institution got a good education there but i remember we were doing a course in the summer with the social work department and we were ministers in training there and she says well we have an msw mdiv program with the mennonite school come by and say so why we don't have it for our students say well we would like to so i went out me with my bold self went to the dean and said hey why are we not doing oh well we at that time we just want you guys to focus on theology i said but wait a minute the problems are going to come in here that that some of the things we're learning now i'm glad to say that they have it uh many years later because the world has changed it's getting worse folks and the problems that are going to come through the door a scripture while important is not going to address what that person is saying then you need some other skills and i think the more we are armed with those we can help sometimes we can do an initial assessment but then we have to refer because it's beyond us but at least the church should be a place where somebody comes through we should be prepared to say yes we hear your story hear the resources we can direct you we can pick up the phone and call somebody directly and i have someone here can you help um i just want to leave something really quick recently i did a program with heather dawn small most of you know that as the women's ministries leader for the general conference and she gave a testimony where she suffers from depression and she's been suffering from depression for a long time she has to be on medication and she openly admitted that there are times when she would not bathe that her husband would have to tell her you need to take a bath this is the woman that is at the head of the general conference for the seventh-day adventist now i'm not saying that here to bring her down i'm saying that when she went out there and just so vulnerably sure that women some women were texting like dude she really said that like she didn't bathe you know like i wouldn't have said that and you know and then some some women said that they just felt so much more empowered to realize that this broken woman had been leading the conference of women and i mean generally i i've met her and when she's fine she's fine you know but i just want to share that with you all that we're all broken like i said this morning and some people will take some things from it and then other people felt other women felt that this is a person just like me struggling to make it to the kingdom i need some medication but i'm holding on to the hem of jesus and we're going we're going amen so that's it for our questions at this time we are getting um close to the time so i'll have you guys just give one minute um remarks on um to help someone that maybe go into abuse right now just leave them with some kind of kind words or some confident words so we'll just go from sister vicky all the way up to sister sandy i think he goes back to what the sermon today was jesus is the only one he's the only one who can take everything that's happened in the past and transform a broken heart because he's the only one whose love is forever he's the only man who would love you like no one can he's the only one who can bring healing in your life and then take that i said take that pain and turn it around and help someone else i just i'm writing a book which will be out this this month on amazon and i have taken the pain of my life i have taken the the the trauma and the abuse in my workplace and i have turned it around to help many millions of people that's my desire that is what i want to do i want to take that pain take those memories i have gotten healing from jesus and i want to help others and i think that is where we have to go at the end of the day jesus is the only one that can write everything that can bring complete restoration that can fully heal you and so i want to say to everyone out there whatever kind of abuse trauma anything you've gone through in your home life in your personal life your marriage at work you know um jesus is who you really need amen amen before you said a lot and then i don't know what else to say but tomorrow we're going to talk about lord deliver me but deliverance takes more than prayer amen it begins with prayer but it takes more than prayer so to someone who may feel it or find themselves in a start with prayer but it's going to take more than prayer and as you go through the process there is going to be pain but god will not not leave you in the pain yes so after the only thing i would say to those who are here and watching is that you're not alone you may feel like you are but you're not alone in those moments where the world is caving in and everything seems like it's going to end call on god call on his name and just hold on because he sees that and if you ask him help will come whether it's to give you the courage to leave whether it's listening to something like this or whether it's someone that he will put in your life i truly believe that there are divine intervention and so when you are struggling i think we know what we need to do most of the time for some reason we may not do it but like i said before spiritual and professional amen amen what you see here in me god can do for you broken clay and the hand of a potter is the way i like to describe myself he's still spinning the wheel he still spinning my wheel and if i had to tell you of the things that god has roth in my life then that would be a whole other program god didn't give up on me he's not going to give up on you just call up to him amen thank you so much um panelists thank you for answering these q and a questions as of now we do have the numbers that are on the screen as we promised before about the numbers that you can reach if you're in trouble and you're needing help so do um reach out to those numbers i'm gonna hand it over praise the lord praise god so we really want to say thank you thank you thank you is this working yeah praise god wow this is indeed a blessing this is a blessing i don't want to be too selfish but i am blessed i am blessed in a very very special way thank you i want to say thank you to sister tamara byrd uh sister sandra lee mass pastor roderick and sister katie thank you maybe you guys do not remember sister kelly was one of our first speaker for the first program we had for women ministry when kobe was at the isp and she came beyond kovid and she was here live thank you so much all we can just say is thank you and i want to encourage you that tomorrow we are continuing this again i want to thank everybody that came here in person and are joining us online especially i want to thank our men there's a question that is lingering in my mind i'm pastor roderick maybe your answer tomorrow for us why is it that when we have programs like this we don't see our men and uh there are some i'm not going to say everyone but some feel that this is a woman problem when you go to family program marriage counseling you see more women than men and i don't see a woman making a home he's supposed to be the woman and the man so this is a question that the young ones have asked me this is my own personal questions and i don't know how we can address that so that's why i really appreciate the men out here that are here and also when you want a woman to go for counseling and you follow your mind to counseling and the man says it's your problem so how do you want that woman to go for cancelling when just going to the counselling alone she already feels that you are the problem and there's nothing to manage in the man so there is a lot of things we have a lot of questions to have that's why i want to encourage all of you to join us 10 a.m tomorrow it's going to be a powerful time with pastor roderig and we have our other guest speakers here tomorrow to answer all our questions and address the last part of this session thank you so much so we have a closing song oh no we can just do that we have some gifts for our guests why would i miss that i'll call on the uh the woman ministry treasurer uh to come and do this for us please wow you guys are awesome thank you thank you can you give them a round of applause thank you beautiful i i just want to say that what we are giving you cannot quantify what you have done but the blessings of god supersede it okay and god will put his blessing on leads so uh i hand over to her i'm just going to call you one by one and starting from a friday speaker i can call my uh the assistant memorize ministry leader too to join us she will do the last phrase all right so sister tamara bird you want to come up and can i get some people to give us a little picture come on i can get an improvised camera good evening oh oh foreign okay you [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] you have been frequenting here [Music] oh yes no no no you look at our good and you really want us to be the women of god that we're supposed to be so we are here now from women ministry houston international thanking you with this gift we are saying thank you okay [Applause] thank you all thank you all [Music] and pastor roderick bishop one man that will just always be available i don't know how he does it but we just thank you thank you [Music] good evening everyone i have the pleasure of thanking pastor rodrigo rodrick bishop [Music] he's such a wonderful man he doesn't have no in his dictionary you can call him at any time to cancel anyone it's not necessarily people from our church it can be from any church he doesn't say no i have called him several times for problems regarding other families i have been there for them and at the end good results so i have a pleasure to thank you this evening to say thank you so much for attending our program may god bless you oh [Music] she doesn't realize i'm about to call her name you don't know you're one of us sister or koti and she's the woman ministry leader for katie even if we as much as just text you you sure if you hear of us doing anything you show up you're someone that we consider to be part of us there's no other way to show appreciation other than to indoctrinate you into houston international seventh-day adventist women's ministry welcome to his death thank you this is for you thank you [Music] and that is the assistant woman ministry leader uh miss moyer falaye and that's our treasurer sister stella in zadie bay all right so let's turn up as we take the closing him with sister mufei olaleia as sister joy or tattle and sister tiffany i don't want to call her biotino but she and after that sister tamara bread will give us the closing prayer i can't so [Music] everything to god in prayer [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] should is be discovered take it to the lord in prayer [Music] can we find a friend so faithfully [Music] take it to the [Music] god [Music] you [Music] take it to the lord in prayer do thy friends despise force take it to the lord in prayer in his thou will find us soulless there [Music] let us pray dear heavenly father thank you because you are our hope lord and you we can hold on and you we can hope for a better tomorrow and in you lord we can find restoration lord the world we live in you told us that it will be become cold and full of sin but you also instruct in the scriptures where to go for guidance for help and you also tell us lord that you never leave us or forsake us then we when we feel alone if we look down we see footsteps that they are yours carrying us in the moment of need i ask for those who need to hold on don't lose hope look up you serve a living god and i ask that in the midst of your storm he may grant you peace that surpasses all understanding and as we leave our separate ways lord fill the cups that are empty and guide our steps and protect us in jesus name amen [Music] foreign

Channel: Houston International SDA Church

Views: 199

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Id: sA6ETyb-k3Y

Length: 185min 20sec (11120 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021