As we prayed 20 years ago into the very first Precious Daughters conference, I had a vision. In it, a Native American woman dressed in all white was speaking in front of the gathered ladies. As I did not have lots of experience with dreams and visions, I took it to mean that we should find a First Nations gal and have her come to the conference. When we began to reach out to these women we got a chilly response. What do you need us for? What is this conference about? It was years before reconciliation ministries were making peace between the cultures of the world and it just did not ring a spiritual bell with them. So, we laid it down and held our first conference and it was glorious, so many women saved, healed and filled.
When the next year rolled around, our team knew that we were to hold another gathering. Our friends, Harvi and Connie Hood, remembered the year before and contacted us to say that they thought they knew the woman that God had called to be part of our conference. To our amazement when I shared the vision with Rita Bear Gray, she 'got it' and agreed to join us in God's plan for His daughters. During our workshop time, Rita hosted a Native drumming class. None of us knew what to expect but that she was filled with the Holy Ghost and a burning fire for Jesus, her lover and savior. When Bertie went into the room to deliver a message, she did not get far before being slammed to the floor by Holy Spirit and His presence was so heavy in the room. Women were weeping, laughing, drumming, singing...in a joyous celebration of God's love for them and who they were deep down inside.
At the evening service we invited our Native American sisters to open the service and Rita lead them in a call to the winds of God to come from the North, South, East and West. As the power of the heart beat of God drummed out on all of the 1,000 women gathered, He began to set them free from their hurts, past, fear of man. The climax came as Rita stood in for the "Indians" and Vicky Adams stood in for the "Cowboys" in a time of forgiveness and reconciliation.
We knew that this was a God moment with earth shaking ramifications but had not heard a testimony of what He did during that conference until Memorial Day weekend in 2017. We had the pleasure of retreating with Deb Robinson when she shared how her life was forever changed that weekend 19 years ago.
The takeaway here is; do what you hear God say to do. It does not matter if no one understands or even if you understand. Your job, our job is to obey. Like Jesus who said, "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." John 5:19 And everything Jesus did was good and right!!
Enjoy Deb's testimony of what happened to her at the drumming workshop and subsiquent meeting.