Welcome to Updates from the Field, produced by HeartCry Missionary Society. My name is Don Curran. I'm the coordinator for Eastern Europe with the ministry. Today I have the privilege of sitting beside my wife and interviewing her regarding her ministry with HeartCry. We are just delighted with how God has used HeartCry in our own lives. as well as the opportunities the Lord has given us to speak in various venues around the world. And so today, as I interview Cindy, I want to just ask her some questions that I feel like may be a great encouragement to you as a listening audience concerning her ministry with heart crime. And so I think it'd be appropriate to kind of begin with a foundation, honey. Share with the people, you know, how you came to Christ, your whole conversion experience, And if you would, I think that would be a great blessing. Okay. I grew up in central Virginia, not too far from here in Radford. And I did not grow up in a Christian home, but when I was around 11, 12 years old, I began riding a church bus to church. And I heard the preaching, and during special meetings, I went forward. asked Jesus to come into my heart and was assured by people that I had become a Christian. And then I went on with my life as if nothing had changed, entered high school, lived like everyone else. And I became very involved in my church. I found a loving church home and was just fully accepted and loved. But I had no relationship with the Lord Jesus. And so I felt empty. I talked to so many preachers, asking them about my salvation, that I was doubting if I was truly a Christian, even though I was there for every service. I was teaching Sunday school, very involved, and everyone kept telling me that I had to be a Christian. And so then my pastor influenced me to go away to Bible college, and my first week in Bible college, I made an appointment with the vice president of the school because I was so struggling, not knowing that I was going to heaven. In God's kind providence, just about a week or so later, a man came into our school and preached on true conversion. The Lord just made it so clear that I had not been born again. We were reading in my freshman literature class the book Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. I remember the morning that God saved me, I was like, this is what He was talking about. This huge burden of sin that I had been dragging around, that I could not get rid of, was gone. And the Lord filled my heart with joy and peace and began at that point to do a work in me inwardly. It wasn't just outward conforming to what others were telling me to do. It was an inward work of the Holy Spirit. And so I am so grateful. for His mercy and His faithfulness to me over these last 45 years. That's wonderful, wonderful. Well, I can pay tribute to what God has done in your life. I'm very thankful. You know, we've been married now for 44 years, and it's been a great blessing, you know, to have the relationship with you and see the evident work of God in your life. Why don't you share with the folks what you have been doing over the years. We've been with HeartCry Missionary Society for the last 14 years. I don't like to think of myself as operating independently of you in the ministry, because you've been right by my side, and you've done various things for HeartCry. Tell the folks what you have done and what you're doing presently with HeartCry. Well, as Don said, we've been married 44 years. He has been in ministry all of those years, and it has just been my goal in life to be a servant of the Lord Jesus, and secondly, a servant to my husband, and to help him in his ministry any way that I could. So we have traveled for the last 44 years with him preaching and teaching in various venues. I homeschooled my children for most of those years. And so once we were finished homeschooling, Dawn began with heart cry, and I just went to Brother Paul and some of the staff and said, you know, I'm not homeschooling anymore. I have some time on my hands, and I would love to help the ministry in any way that I can. And so I just began doing a few things for them on the side. And then as Dawn became involved as the coordinator of Eastern Europe, I would travel with him overseas. Normally, before COVID, we would go several times a year internationally, and I would teach the ladies wherever we went. And then also, as he interviewed our missionaries or prospective missionaries, I would be there with him to take notes, to make reports, to send into the staff. And I've just been very privileged to establish a relationship with many of these women around the world. And they have been such a blessing to me. And I am thankful for the privilege to be able to correspond with them and pray with them. And many of them don't have Christian mothers. They are from non-Christian unbelieving homes. And so I'm privileged just to be able to mentor some of them one-on-one and then as well as teach. Tell the folks what you're doing presently. You're involved in Zoom teaching, and you're teaching in different places or contexts around the world via Zoom. Share with them a little bit about that, honey. Well, I think one of the blessings that has come out of COVID is more Zoom teaching. And so since we were not able to travel to Eastern Europe as we have in the past, I was asked to begin teaching the ladies, the missionaries, and their wives, the women there in Eastern Europe, every other week. And so we started that about a year ago. And I teach them every other week. And then the coordinator here for Asia had asked me if I would consider teaching the women in China. And I began that in January. And we have Zoom teaching once a month with the women in China. And so I am thankful also for those opportunities to teach these dear sisters. Tell the folks also, honey, exactly what you have been teaching on. I know that you coordinate everything under the oversight of the pastors. and, of course, Heart, Cry, Missionary Society. So it's not like you're just coming up with your own format of teaching. You're asking, well, what direction do you sense that God would have me go? And so you submit accordingly to the leadership of these local churches. And so tell the folks what you have been teaching over these months. When I began the teaching with the ladies in Eastern Europe, Brother Paul had asked specifically that I would teach on egalitarianism versus complementarianism, the woman's role in the home and the church. And so as I prayed about that, I felt that the Lord would not have me necessarily go into terms like egalitarianism, but just go to the scripture. and teach the women from the scripture what God's role has been and still is for women. And so I began in Genesis and took several months just laying a foundation from creation, God's design for the woman in creation, and how that did not change after the fall. The fall only made it more difficult for men and women to carry out their roles because of the presence of sin. And so then we moved from Genesis into Proverbs 31, And I stressed with the ladies that although the culture had changed tremendously, we were in ancient Israel now, a completely different culture, several thousand years later, but God's plan for women had not changed at all. it was still the same. And so we took several months to go through Proverbs 31, and then we fast-forwarded about another thousand years to the Greek island of Crete and the second chapter of Titus, those first five verses. And I stress to the women, here we are again in a completely different culture, different time period in history, and yet it's clear from the Scripture that God's role for women had not changed at all. And so we spent months going through Titus chapter 2. We just completed that last week. And so next week, we will begin looking at the woman's role in the church in the New Testament. And I love that the Apostle Paul goes back to creation, again, back to that foundation as the reason for the woman's role in the church. Now, because feminism is so rampant around the world now, and of course the spirit of egalitarianism, which is just basically saying, you know, that women do not want to come under God's authority and God's design in the scripture. You've got a lot of great feedback from these various places of women that have Zoomed into your teaching and have benefited immensely. And of course, the feedback many times comes from the pastors or those who are coordinating these Zoom meetings. But why don't you share with the folks just briefly just some of the things that women or even probably even more importantly, the pastors have shared with you of how the content has impacted their women. I think this teaching is so needed around the world because women don't understand the blessing of filling the role that God has created for us. It's a wonderful thing to be a woman of God and be able to be used of God to complement and serve the men of God as they serve Him. I have received a lot of encouragement from pastors, from our missionaries. just encouraging me in what I am teaching. And the pastor in China that I primarily work with just recently started five home groups for the women to meet after I teach. They meet and they discuss the lesson and then discuss ways they can implement the teaching in their homes and in their lives, practical ways to put into practice what they've been taught. So that's been very encouraging. I also receive a lot of good questions on various topics, needs that women have in their role in the home and in the church. And that's encouraging the Q&A times and being able to correspond with them with answers. Wonderful, wonderful. Why don't you share with the folks just some prayer requests? I mean, in light of what God's opened up in the way of these effectual ministries, I know that you're constantly soliciting prayer from our home church, from our people as well as people around the world. And so people that perhaps are not familiar with you or what God's doing in your ministry right now, how can they better pray for you? Are there specifics that they can take before the throne of grace? I am so appreciative for those who pray for me. And I would say as far as our teaching time, I would appreciate prayers for wisdom. to know often the directions to go, to be able to give biblical answers to sometimes very difficult questions. I also need wisdom to know how much ministry to accept so that I do my best at each one and I'm not overextended. I would pray and ask you to pray for the teaching times that God would just make his word effectual that the Holy Spirit would use it. I pray every time I teach for the translation. Translation is so crucial that things are translated properly. For the technical aspects, I'm not technical at all and I'm so thankful for those who take care of that. But, you know, we always need good internet connection and those things, I pray about those. Most importantly, I would ask for prayer just for my own walk with the Lord. that he would continue to make these truths near and dear to my heart for the sake of the gospel. It's not just on the role of women, but in Titus 2, in verse 5, we're told that it's so important for the older women to teach the younger women these things so that the word of God is not dishonored or blasphemed. And in the verse 10, so that the gospel would be adorned. And that's what it's all about. I just pray that the gospel would be beautified and adorned in our lives as women of God, and that the Holy Spirit would just continue to work in my heart, draw me closer to Him, and just make me more like Christ as I teach. Thank you so much. It's been a blessing over the years, you know, our relationship as a husband and wife and our devotional time in the morning, you know, we do devotional supplements and you and I will just talk back and forth about theology. And of course, we seek to aspire as a couple to internalize what we learn biblically in our lives. Anyway, thank you today for joining us on Missions Monday. It's been a great joy to share what God's doing in our marriage and through the ministry of Cindy at this time. Lord bless you. Thank you for listening to Updates from the Field. Visit HeartCryMissionary.com to view our other productions and to find out more about HeartCry Missionary Society.