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World Outreach Podcast
World Outreach Podcast
EP 44 Empowering Women in Global Missions: A Conversation with Ruby
In this conversation, Ruby will share her experienced of being called to be a pioneer missionary in West Africa. She will share some of the lessons she has learned as a women serving in a patriarchal society and how God uses women to expand his kingdom. She will has share about the exciting opportunities majority world missionaries create in this new generation of missions. Be inspired by her story of faith and a consecrated life to God.
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You're listening to the World Outreach Podcast dynamic conversations designed to empower our community as we engage underage people groups everywhere. I'm excited to have our conversation today. We're going to discuss one of our values as an organization, one of the distinctives, which is to affirm women in leadership and ministry. We're going to speak to one of our women leaders, a pioneer in missions. Ruby is part of our international leadership team and she's also the manager of curriculum for the Asia Center for Missions. We're excited to have you on our call today, ruby, looking forward to hearing more about your story and how women have been used in missions over the years and your personal journey of walking with God in missions. So thank you for taking the time to meet with us today. Thank you, ben. So, as we get started into our conversation today, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your family, kind of your journey into ministry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so, as Ben said, my name is Ruby. I'm married to Danny. I have five kids. They are ages 30, 28, 26, 24, and 15. I have plenty right. I come from the Philippines. We have served as missionaries to West Africa for almost 20 years Among a nomadic people group and other UPGs under world outreach. We are now back in the Philippines. My husband is leading the Asian Center for Missions, or ACM. Acm is the missionary training arm of CBN Asia. I also serve, as Ben said, in the international leadership team of world outreach.
Speaker 1:We've had many years more than 20 plus years kind of admissions and serving on the field and I'm really excited to hear about your experience and journey within that. One of the things that we want to talk about is the role of women in admissions and how we can value women in missions. From our organization, as I said, we affirm women in admissions and leadership, but we've also seen so much great work being done and pioneered and started by women just like yourself. Why don't you show us just a beginning with your experience as being a woman in the missions field?
Speaker 2:You know, I received my calling as a very young girl. I had a dream. The scene was very simple but forever etched in my memory. I saw in my dream dark domed hands stretched out towards me, as if receiving something, and then I saw myself handing out something to them. That was all. But this dream somehow meant about my purpose in calling in life.
Speaker 2:So growing up, I always had this picture in mind and during my junior high I received the Lord as my personal Lord and Savior. I was joining a community of believers before that that have a very, very limited knowledge of God. We have this general knowledge of God but no personal walk. So in junior high, somebody shared to me and I was blessed to have joined the church that is very mission-al. We have a youth program where we were trained to do local missions and we go on short-term mission trips all over the Philippines during our semestrial breaks. And that's where the fulfillment of my calling started.
Speaker 2:And so, after graduating in university, this burden to really serve God full-time in cross-cultural mission was burning deep in my heart.
Speaker 2:So I was actually my husband and I, our product of Asian Center for Missions. We were the first to be trained from our city and at first people were questioning our calling, like why are you going somewhere else? There is a great need here in the Philippines. You know, being in a third-world country as well, you have those questions of who am I, what can I do as a woman? You question yourself because of those, and we have this mentality that, oh, missionaries are from the West, from the Western world. So is it possible for the majority world and for a woman to be even thinking about mission work? But the calling was so strong in my heart and so I prayed Lord, give me a partner who has the same calling and the same vision as I have and I can work alongside with the survey. When God answered. And so I met Danny when we were serving as youth leaders in the church, and the rest is history. We got married, back to our kids and went to serve God in Africa as church planters.
Speaker 1:So tell me about you going. Your call, you're married. You now moved to the field. What were some of your initial experiences as you begin reaching out to an underage people group, and a nomadic one at that, in challenging circumstances and conditions and all that? Tell us a little bit about that kind of general experience that you faced.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So first of all we did not know the language. The culture is very, very foreign to us. And then we started dealing with malaria, with hepatitis, you know, and then very different culture. And so my husband and I, what we did first of all is consecrated life of prayer. So during the first years we learned the importance of a consecrated life, a time to really go into a journey of prayer and a journey of getting to know God. And you know, when we did that, doors just opened to us and we really started getting invitations from villages.
Speaker 2:And when we go to the village this country is a patriarchal country the men are the head of the families and even the community.
Speaker 2:So when we visit the villages, danny will be with the men and then I will be left with my little kids, but then the mothers and the young girls will be there.
Speaker 2:So, and then they are a very communal community. They do their household work and cooking outside at the yard, and so we go and sit with the women and having children of my own, the women recognize that she is a foreigner, she is a mini missionary, but she is a mother too, and so that opens up conversation and opportunities for me to share with them and I would ask them to teach me the language. I would ask them to teach me just simple meals and they love that. They love that I am interested in their daily lives, in their cooking, and that opens opportunities for me to have conversations about the gospel. And when they start sharing sickness in the family or challenges just they have as women, I can pray. Those were my experiences as we were starting and ministry progress. I focused on that, I focused on the women, I focused on the children and it opened a lot of opportunities for the ministry to grow.
Speaker 1:So in that sense, you both were using your strengths, your differences being male and female to capitalize on the strengths and opportunities that that presented to you, as you shared the gospel and you met people in real need. When you look back at those early years and then, you guys had success. Many churches were planted, some children's ministries were started and various things were started. As you look back, you mentioned a consecrated lifestyle and prayer. What did that look like? What does it mean to have a consecrated lifestyle and a consecrated prayer in that?
Speaker 2:We didn't know the language right, we were learning. We were learning the culture, and you have a genuine love for the people and you have a desire to go and do something. But the language limitation did not permit us to do that right away. So we had time and so we made decisions to pray, like when the minaret sounds early in the morning. We made a decision to the day even before the minaret will sound we will rise up before everybody, and if they are faithfully praying, we too will pray. And so we, as a family, we called our little children you know, they were one and they were three and we will pray, spend time in prayer. We spent time in even fasting. We made it a lifestyle. We would launch like a yearly 40 days of fasting and really spend time in prayer. So those months when we cannot do actual ministry, we labored, labored and labored in prayer and fasting. And you know, after that the ministry just started to take off. Opportunities were all open to us. It was so much easier, and so we developed that lifestyle of prayer.
Speaker 1:That's great. So that would be a significant lesson that you would draw as you look back is like man, you know a lifestyle of prayer, bringing prayer into it, bathing our work in prayer, praying for the people groups we're going to work with, and just having that intimacy with God and calling on Him for things. What other lessons did you learn as you begin pioneering a new work in this region?
Speaker 2:One lesson I learned, ben, is women. We compensate the work of men, that pastors, leaders of churches, should not be threatened by women ministers, because when my husband would dock to the chief, to the head of the community, there is a ministry waiting for me too, but it is only opened to me if I allow my husband to thrive in the ministry that he's doing and whatever he cannot do, which is to reach out to the women, because it's a patriarchal community, then the opportunity is left to me, and so we compensated each other. We were not in competition, and even as I support my husband fully, more and more opportunities are open for me. So that was one of the learnings that I have, and another thing is just loving the grassroot level, developing relationships with the women, being sincere in relationships.
Speaker 2:In the community where we lived, it was a Muslim community, but all the children called me mommy so funny sometimes even the old women. But because I have the simple first aid kits and I have the simplest medicines for headache or for just cleaning wounds, and then when the children in the community are wounded, they will always run to our home and I would simply dress up their wounds, give them headache medicines and then the women would come and they will bring simple things like that that are sincere, can open up an opportunity for simple women Because, as I said a while ago, women are always asking what can I do? What's my role? I cannot preach like a pastor, but the women can sincerely love the community and open their homes to their community and those will really open opportunities to demonstrate the gospel in very tangible ways.
Speaker 1:You and Danny were not in competition with one another, but you were working side by side as partners within the ministry and Danny had opportunities with the males but then with the females where he wasn't allowed to go, and actually I mean, I've been there. They don't interact males and females either. You know they're very separated. You were able just to step up and to lead and to start ministry and just to start ministry and just step into that as you grew. In that, what opportunities are. How did you address even that as yourself, recognizing your role as a minister and a leader in a community like this?
Speaker 2:As we grew in leadership, church planting, evangelism, doing everything by ourselves, we grew into raising leaders, mentoring, doing discipleships, and Danny would organize conferences for the men and for the pastors, but then back to back. I would also do a similar thing for the women and I would also do trainings for, like, sunday school teachers, and so we compensate the work of the ministry. That way we are able to address the needs on both sides.
Speaker 1:You'll be able to address the needs of the whole community by both recognizing the value of men and women and addressing their specific needs and the things that they want, that the gospel can reach out and touch both and is actively touching both. Yeah, as you look back and you are kind of assessing your life and your role and the things that you guys have accomplished, and new women come to you who are pondering a call to missions and wanting to step up, as you talked about mentoring new people and stuff. What kind of advice or encouragement do you give them as women going out onto the field?
Speaker 2:I would say that women should not be threatened by the big word mission work, because so many opportunities are available for women to do. We have these mission partners in Southeast Asia. We are women, but they are working along the border, where there are young girls being trafficked into prostitution or selling drugs. And these women single women they started the home and then they took the young girls, taught them English, taught them basic life skills like making soap baking. Today their ministries are very successful and these are not just like one or two.
Speaker 2:In the last five years, just the last five years, when Danny and I returned to the Philippines to serve under Asian Center for Mission as trainers in our online training program, we were able to train 165. And 122 of those are women. So that is like 74% of the manpower are women. They go out as teachers, they go out as nurses, caregivers, they go out offering simple, transformational development projects like making sausages, fabricating soap. And then the women, because in the majority world, many of the women depend on their husbands for everything and so they are valued less.
Speaker 2:But then when you empower women by giving them skills that they can monetize, and then they start giving, adding value to the family, then they start having a voice. In turn, when you preach the gospel to them, they begin to have boldness and reach out Because they saw, they experienced themselves that, hey, I can have value, I can add value to our community, to my family. And they start sharing to other women. And you know what happens when you do that. More women will come and so you begin having this community of workers. In one church in Southeast Asia the pastor believed in the ministry of women and you know 90% of her fellow group leaders are women and they are faithful, they are dedicated. It's just so wonderful to see them serving the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and these are not unique for us as an organization. Where that reaches is not unique. We have women doing a variety of these things healthcare clinics. We have women who rescue the persecuted believers. You know, in North Africa, Northeast Africa, we have people going out as teachers and stuff, as church planters directly. But really the point is, all of these are avenues or strategies to go and make disciples, Make disciples under a supergroup and all of us male, female are all called to do that.
Speaker 2:Amen, and then it just gives me goosebumps. You know, thinking about this, like everyone just going and forming Christ centered communities wherever we are, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and it's so important, and sometimes we over complicate it rather than just saying hey, let's make followers of Jesus who make followers of Jesus and we can develop this community. You just talked about you know you guys training so many people over the last couple of years. 74% are women in your years of you know working in this arena. How can or where can you know organizations and churches improve on the? You know sending and serving women in missions. What's your experience there? What advice do you give for people in that area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, first, our churches need to see that women share a sincere love for the Lord and the church like everyone else, and so when women feel called to serve the Lord through mission work, I agree that the church leadership will recognize the calling of these women and support them. And another one is you know, women are very vulnerable, like I know. You've lived in the majority world country and uh, and visited a lot of uh uh women in the in the majority world. You know the situation, you know the uh how some are treated, and so another thing that I would like the the church to address is give the women a sense of security and safety where they can um, if they go out as missionaries like connect, let us connect them to communities where they can be safe so that they can thrive in those communities that we are there, uh, to protect them.
Speaker 1:Anything else.
Speaker 2:Another one is women can be used, as I can. We can mobilize them as intercessors. Yeah, my mom, my mom, she um, she loves the Lord and she is also a church lantern.
Speaker 2:She has this group of old women, uh, all senior citizens, and every day they would, um, meet together in a cafe. They will pray together every day, then after they, you know, they go out, they eat somewhere and then they, they do that again tomorrow and the next day. And so we have this opportunity to even top the senior, the women who are seniors or who already retired, and they are uh, workforce, uh for intercession, and they will love to do that.
Speaker 1:Great and it's encouraging, um because we never retire. Do we really in the kingdom of God? We don't retire, we can just shift roles and areas of response.
Speaker 1:We can do and prayer, something that we can all do and participate for a long time. Let's shift gears just a little bit in our conversation and you talked about you know yourself being from the Philippines and majority world country, majority world missions, where you guys are training and sending Filipinos and others to get involved in the Great Commission. What shifts do you see in the missions world from moving from minority or the Western world to majority world missionaries and how is that shaping the future of mission?
Speaker 2:I see the majority world at the minority world still has a big part. But the shift I see is that, you know, because of bilateral, the changing of bilateral relations of countries, the visa restrictions, the missionaries from the minority world should have the mindset to go out as trainers because you never know when your visa won't be renewed anymore. So in the short time that they have in the majority world mission, work to really position themselves as trainers. And then for the majority world, we are already here, we are already among the UPGs where there is very little or no witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have to set up the majority world with a mindset of global mission, of understanding what are UPGs, what's the role of the church in the Great Commission and a chain. We have to invest in training and raising leaders, raising workers, so that we will go. The majority world workers will just go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard you share in the past about there's definitely a willingness amongst majority world people to go and be involved in the Great Commission. But it's an exposure, it's an awareness, it's the training and equipping that's still required for many of them to go and cross that hurdles. For Filipinos, it's quite common that they go as overseas foreign workers in a variety of different kind of trade roles or professional roles and this provides them access to people to be in places where maybe traditional missions of being sent don't doesn't allow it. As you said, many places are just clitting down. What are some of the lessons that you have learned as you observe churches and people supporting those type of workers and being involved in the work, encouraging them and that type of thing?
Speaker 2:One thing, ben, is sustainability. We have to teach the majority world workers that not to look at the western world as the source of the mighty dollar. But we can do church planting in a contextualized way where we do not have to build million dollars worth of buildings because if that happens we just look to the foreign missionaries as the providers. But we have to teach the local workers sustainability. How can we want churches in a contextualized way where we do not need depend so much on financial help from outside? Of course these are case-to-case basis, because there are helps that are essential for other mission workers also and it's always a partnership. But that mindset, just that mindset of sustainability that there are resources in our countries, we can do church planting in a local setting where we do not have that dependency mentality, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:It is really important and we're seeing that we're seeing a shift and a rising up of particularly in Southeast Asia and other regions in this area of the local church raising funds, supporting and sending missionaries out themselves, not dependent on traditional western partnerships and stuff, but it's a global church coming together to supply resources. We're seeing that as that adoption, that understanding of what we can do as a majority world churches and missions to send and release workers. That's exciting because there has been a shift I've noticed it in the 20 years I've lived in Southeast Asia now A significant difference of people saying, hey, we're ready, let's send people, and actually doing it without outside assistance, which is awesome. It's great to see, as we've talked about in the past, it adds such great diversity to the mission field and people can go to different places that other people couldn't go. So and we're getting the representation of the whole body of Christ coming together now into global missions, which was his you know God's intention to begin with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd like to add one more thing Also. Integrity and leadership is essential that we raise leaders in the youth, in the local setting. That's why training is very important when we can teach them the value of integrity and leadership and to own the ministry, to really love their people. You know this genuine love for what the Lord wants us to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, we have to have that love. And that love is there and we can impart that and teach it and train it, and we do see people stepping up and saying, yeah, this is what God has for me. Would you briefly describe some of the, you know, advancements amongst unreached group groups that have taken place because of, you know, this new shift into majority world missions coming to the forefront?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like here in the Philippines, we have 14 remaining unreached people group and, because of the shift of the mission work now we are, there are more locals going there Because you know if they see a white person going to those places there is the risk of kidnapping and risks a lot of risks. But for somebody who already speaks the language, who is already in that community but is trained and will have a burden for their people group, the results are amazing. We have here in the Philippines. There is a movement. A lot of the UPGs are coming to the cities. So now we have trained several workers who are now targeting these UPGs and it's local, local reaching to local UPGs.
Speaker 1:Which still requires an element of cross-cultural training and understanding how to engage with somebody foreign, because they are of different cultures. They might have a similar trade language, but their way they live and their lifestyles or worldview are different, and so it's that's where the training and the equipping and the releasing people is really important in this as well, that's true.
Speaker 2:Because there are still a lot of churches as well who just wants to reach out to the community around them, but not the UPG around them who are living among them. So, it will also take a mindset of doing missions, awareness seminars, engaging the church.
Speaker 1:Right, otherwise those people fall through the cracks. They're unseen people because they're not of the larger population of that community. What is exciting you about missions right now in general?
Speaker 2:I'd speak for the Filipinos who were who or who went like 20, 30 years ago. They now have disciples, like the second generation, and we now have the opportunity to train the second generation of workers who are already in those areas and now are being mobilized to reach out to other UPGs in their community. For me, it's really amazing. In fact, we are going to, we are doing one in Southeast Asia and there are 31 being trained now. From these 31, there are around eight UPGs UPG background believers who are being trained and are now being challenged to go back to their community to start church planting. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I mean that generational growth and the transferring of responsibility to all people. I think that's really exciting, you know, because we're all called into the mission. So, as we wrap up this call, what are some final words of advice or encouragement Would you like to give to our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I pray that the Lord will truly raise more women in missions and that they receive the support they need to become successful, and that our workers, everyone we, will truly journey in a deep, meaningful, nurturing, growing, thriving relationship with the Lord so that we can go as a witness.
Speaker 1:Ruby, thank you for joining us today. I'm encouraged to hear your story and your testimony and your journey of walking with God for all these years and the ministry that you guys have accomplished and the releasing and training of more workers out into the to the harvest field. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Ben.
Speaker 1:Listener, thank you for tuning into our conversation today. I hope you're really encouraged by Ruby's story or testimonies or experience, and I hope that you grabbed onto something that you want to go and talk to God about. And, as always, if you have any comments or questions on this podcast, you can email me. The information is in the show notes and feel free to share this podcast with others who might be interested in learning about global missions. Thank you, let's go make disciples amongst unreached people, groups everywhere, and God bless you.