Hope For Europe Network - Women in Leadership

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

The goal for our consultation is to encourage women in leadership in their roles in the church and in society. Like previous years, we will have a special emphasis on encouraging younger women as leaders. Elke Werner from Germany has been asked to address this issue. Another area that will be given special attention to is the family and how we can encourage strong families. In relation to this, we will also have a seminar on reaching the older generation in Europe, where people live longer all the time. Every morning will start with a Bible study by Pamela Rosewell Moore, who was Corrie ten Boom's assistant during the last years of Corrie's life.

The evening sessions will be open to other participants of HOPE.II, while the participants of our network can also attend the evening sessions of other networks. We hope to have one evening with a special musical emphasis, since the network of Artists will also participate in HOPE.II.

Details of the HOPE•II Women in Leadership consultation programme will be updated reguarly here. Consultations will be held at the Bara Hotel, close to the Budapest Congress Centre, and where the women's consutlation was held at HOPE•21. (See list and map of hotels for photos, address and location).

Consultation speakers include:

Alexandra Depuhl is not known to mince her words. With her astute directness she has always managed to compete and hold her own in a male domain. Yet on the question whether women can be leaders without compromising their femininity, she finds that some Christians have yet to take up the initiative.

In an earlier interview with Wolfgang Severin, she spoke of what it means for women leaders to be empowered and for them to stand beside younger leaders and be their mentors. Today, she would say that she has found a way on how women can lead in a feminine way and that she hopes they will learn to lead well together with men.

Alexandra is the Team Leader for the NextLEVEL Leadership network in Germany, which seeks to inspire women to walk with God and to lead with character, confidence and competency. She also speaks at Hotel Management seminars, provides mentoring and is a member of Filia – a forum for Christian women in leadership in Germany. She is also the author of the book “Gut Gemeint ist Nicht Genug,” loosely translated as “Good Intentions Are Not Enough” which deals with how to develop successful relationships.

Alexandra's talks at the HOPE.II consultations will be mainly focussed on integrative leadership and communication.

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Shirinai Dossova was born to a Muslim family in Uzbekistan. After her family found out that she had become a Christian, her older brother disowned her and kicked her out of the house. Today, eight out of her nine siblings (including the brother who disowned her) are Christians and many are planting churches. The brother who years ago evicted her from the house is now hosting church services in his home. She describes her family situation as a "miracle."

In Robert Morgan’s book Candles of Truth, Shirinai’s faith and courage are described during a tense episode in Moscow in August 1991 when she walked over to one of the tanks that had surrounded the Russian parliament and knocked loudly on its side with her knuckles. She continued until the baffled driver opened the hatch and appeared. "It says in this book that you shouldn't kill," she said, thrusting the Bible at him. "Are you going to kill us?"

Patricia Green is a Consultant and Advocate for Rahab International who work on behalf of sexually exploited women and children. Patricia is a New Zealander. She is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God, a social worker, and has a Master's degree in Community Psychology.

Patricia founded and was the Director of 'Landmark Christian Homes for Girls' from 1971 to 1987. She also founded and was the Director of 'Rahab Ministries Thailand' from 1988 to 2004.

She is also a well-known speaker on issues of sexual exploitation, trafficking and prostitution. Patricia's passion is to create an awareness of these issues and to motivate people, especially Christians, to reach out to sexually exploited women and children in the name of Christ to offer them a new life.

Patricia has been instrumental in starting such ministries in several countries.

Patricia will address the issue of human trafficking in Europe during a plenary session, under the title'Liberating the captives'. She will also be a resource person for several consultations, including women in leadership and environmental and justice issues.

soula-(2).JPG Soula Isch lives in Montreal, Canada, but travels widely to minister in Europe and Africa in a role of encouragement, teaching and counselling. She is actively working for Serving In Mission, a community of God's people who delight to worship him and are passionate about the Gospel, seeking to fulfil the mission of Jesus Christ in the world. SIM is an international mission organization with more than 1,600 active missionaries serving in more than 50 countries. SIM members serve God among many diverse people groups in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Soula began the Dorcas Widows’ Projects in Burkina Faso and in Niger. For several years the Lord has been showing Soula the needs of widows in general and in Africa in particular. She could tell widows in Canada and Europe that she understood them, but the needs of the widows in West Africa overwhelmed her. Often they had no material or moral support after their husbands' deaths. Often their in-laws want to take their children and sometimes even accuse them in the death of their husbands. Sometimes these mothers give in because of the terrible pressure they have from the cultural "musts;" other times they fight to keep their children.

Eliane Lack has led several Communication schools for the University of the Nations during her three decades of association with Youth With A Mission, an international movement of Christians from many denominations dedicated to presenting Jesus Christ personally to this generation. She has attended several different training courses on inter-personal communications, journalism and writing workshops.

She was on the editorial committee of a French women’s magazine for five years and has been in charge of press relations for a number of Mission congresses of over six thousand participants. Eliane now travels widely to teach various aspects of communication all over Europe, Asia and Africa.

She has a leadership role and was one of the initiators of Femmes 2000, a network of French-speaking women from all Christian backgrounds in Europe—principally in France, French Switzerland and Belgium. Eliane lost her husband a year ago and now resides close to Lausanne in Switzerland. She loves hiking in the Swiss mountains and more recently in the Sahara desert.

Eliane will be talking about the important subject of communication in relationships during the Congress.

Pamela Rosewell Moore is a native of England and was Corrie ten Boom’s personal companion for the last seven years of Corrie’s life. Pamela had her doubts when she interviewed to be companion of the much-loved author Corrie ten Boom. Corrie's best-selling book The Hiding Place, which recounted how she and her family had hidden Jews during World War II in Holland until their betrayal and arrest by the Nazis, had launched for Corrie a worldwide ministry of travel and speaking. Awed by the spiritual challenge this companionship posed, Pamela wondered how she could keep up with the energetic 83-year-old. But God knit a strong bond between the young Englishwoman and the remarkable Dutch evangelist.

She worked as director of intercessory prayer and director of spiritual life at Dallas Baptist University for nearly 15 years. The author of five books of her own, Pam speaks widely at conferences and churches and lives with her husband, Carey, in Waxahachie, Texas.

Pam will address a plenary session on 'Forgiving the past, Forging the future', drawing on lessons learnt from Corrie ten Boom. She will also present bible studies during the Women in Leadership consultation.

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Lotta Stevens comes from stockholm, Sweden. She haas served with YWAM since 1991, together with her husband Mike from New Zealand, and is currently co-base director at YWAM Dalarna in Sweden. Lotta teaches and leads worship in small groups, churches and conferences, in many different denominations, and has a passion to see God magnified and people drawn into His presence.

At the HOPE.II Congress, Lotta will be the worship leader during consultations for the Women In Leadership network.

Martine Vonk holds a Masters degree in Environmental Studies, Social Sciences & Development studies from Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. She is fascinated by issues that relate to sustainability, environment, agriculture, nature, communities and new approaches to church. She has previously worked as a consultant for sustainable agriculture and rural development and was a MP candidate for the Christian Union.

She recently started SPARK, an organization that focuses on projects in the field of sustainability—including group practice of sustainable food policies for rural municipalities. She also writes for publications for the Sustainability Research Institute of the Christian Union and is currently researching relationships between life and sustainability (impact of values on behavior choices). Her research covers the Amish, Hutterite, Franciscan and Benedictine communities.

Martine will address a plenary session on 'Stewarding tomorrow's Europe', as well as lead the two-day consultation on environmental and justice issues.

Emily Voorhies is President of Tirzah International, a faith-based network of national movements, encompassing over 150,000 women leaders worldwide. Tirzah International is focused on addressing five specific issues affecting women and adolescent girls: poverty, lack of education, the AIDS epidemic, modern day slavery, and violence against women (which includes domestic abuse, female circumcision and forced early marriage). In many parts of the world, poverty and cultural practices are often the root causes of the challenges women face.

As women understand their value and purpose in Christ, they are empowered to fulfil the potential with which He created them. Through micro-enterprise training, scholarships, prevention strategies for diseases and the trap of modern slavery, women and girls are changing their lives, the lives of the communities and their nations.

She notes that while there has been a tremendous global impact in connecting Christian women leaders around the world, there are still many women who have few options—which often leads them to make negative life choices. Tirzah International, working through local partnerships, helps women establish businesses, often with a group of others from the program. During a ten-month training course, they develop a skill and learn about business practices and finances.

The organization has found that sewing is a useful skill in many countries. Once she has been trained, a woman is able to make products that can be tailored to suit her culture and the needs of her specific community. She receives a loan to purchase a sewing machine and fabric to begin her business. When the loan is repaid, the funds help another woman from the waiting list enter the program. In most programs, once an initial investment is made, it really is women helping women in their local context.

Everything Tirzah International does is a means of showing God's love in a practical way. Teams usually go into countries where they already have a network of women who have been identified as needing help and are ready to start a program. Bible study, prayer time and Christian counselling are always key elements during training.

Emily says, "It really is a holistic program addressing the spiritual, physical, emotional and mental needs of the women that we are working with."

Elke Werner is the senior associate for women in evangelism for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. She also is founder and director of WINGS (Women's International Network in God's Service) in Marburg, Germany. Werner is the co-leader of a vital interdenominational church fellowship (Christus-Treff). She resides with her husband, Dr. Roland Werner, in Marburg.

Elke was born in 1956 in Duisburg and is the second daughter of Robert and Hanni Brands. She finished her A-levels in 1975 and studied theology and arts to become a teacher. In 1980 her (2 year) trainee-ship started in Kirchhain, close to Marburg. After successfully finishing her studies, she spent half a year in Egypt. Three years later she married Dr. Roland Werner (Theologian and scholar of African languages). Since then they always spend a couple of weeks per annum in Egypt or the Sudan. Parallel to her trainee-ship Elke was crucially involved in the founding of Christus-Treff Marburg – a cross-denominational, missional church within the Lutheran Church. She is involved in the leadership, counseling, executive affairs of the Christus-Treff. She preaches and teaches. In this context Elke was engrossed in the setup of the Christian bookshop "Quo Vadis". In 1988 Elke fell sick with cancer and resulting from chemotherapy and prayer, complete remission was attained.

Elke served on various boards (Middle East Services, RMJ) and since 1993 she is involved in the leadership of Prisca – a ministry that aims at equipping women in leadership positions within the RMJ. During the Expo 2000 in Hanover she headed the staff-support in the “Pavilion of Hope” and developed a concept for a Bible theme park, which was later used for evangelistic outreaches in six cities and reached approximately 60.000 visitors all over Germany. Since 2000 Elke has served on the board of Filia – a forum for Christian women in leadership. She also serves as keynote speaker at various conferences.

During the HOPE.II Congress, Elke's talks will be focussed mainly on the mentoring of young women.