Sobbing so hard she could hardly speak, the young woman poured out her grief. She described in unshrouded words the anguish she had felt at finding out that she was pregnant. She told how, in her distress, she took toxic herbs, beat her belly and ran and ran and ran. When, at last, she started bleeding, it wouldn’t stop. She was rushed out of the mountains and unceremoniously had a stillbirth at the hospital. 

People were disgusted with her. Her husband was hurt. The young woman’s life was in the balance. However, after receiving blood transfusions, her body rallied, and her life was saved. Still, a year or more later, she is pouring out her broken heart to those listening, saying, “I killed my baby. I am a murderer. Can God forgive me?”
 
Her’s was the rawest testimony I had ever heard. While it was hard to listen to her story told in graphic terms, others listening to her testimony were convicted of their own attempts at taking the life of the unborn. The presence of one of the young girls attending the women’s retreat weekend was a testimony of a life that was spared in spite of her mother’s attempts to take it. The mother said, “What if I had been successful at taking the life of my daughter? What if we didn’t have her in our family? I see that I need to also seek forgiveness from God.”
 
Because they lived in many different villages, the women hadn’t seen each other for a long time. It was with anticipation that the women came, each for their own reason. Some came because there wasn’t anything else to do that weekend. Others came hoping to find peace for their troubled hearts. Still others came longing for a sense of community.
 
Through the study of God’s word and digging deeper into familiar Bible stories, God identified our individual needs. Amongst us were murderers, prostitutes, liars, gossipers, adulteresses and slanderers. We realized that we each stood in need of grace. We each needed acceptance from each other and to appreciate that Jesus accepts us as we are (filthy rags and all) and that there is nothing we can do except rejoice in the fact that He found us, then confess our faults and accept His forgiveness. It is then that His transforming power begins remaking us.
 
It was a powerful weekend of reconnecting with each other and with God. Many of the women had backslidden, and it gave them an opportunity to find their way back. It was a time of eating good food accompanied by lots of laughter, but there was also plenty of hugging and crying. Sixty women went home with renewed hope and joy in the knowledge and experience of God’s overwhelming grace.
 
Postscript: To date, many of the backslidden have resumed church attendance and are participating in spreading the good news of God’s grace to their neighbors.

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