In November of 2007 my husband took a team from our church to Africa on a ministering Mission trip.  While traveling from Seeta, Uganda to Mbale, Kenya, I was noticing the many structures that had half built walls, houses that were half built and half built buildings. My spirit became deeply moved and disturbed over the images I was seeing and I felt like weeping.  I saw structures that had 1 or 2 sides of a wall built up to only about 4 feet high with a pile of bricks to the side.  I saw slabs of cheap concrete with gaping holes for windows.  In my mind I can still see the overgrown grass covering parts of a structure that at one time had been someone’s great idea, but now standing abandoned.  There seemed to be no rhyme or reason neither to what I was seeing nor to the extent of what I was seeing, as there were many of these structures. 

One morning, as I was standing on a hotel balcony in Iganga, Uganda, I began to take in the scene of smoldering fires from the night before and the smell of breakfast cooking over outdoor fire pits while listening to the sound of crowing roosters and honking horns of matatu buses.  I was very tired from the intense ministry and travel of the past week and a little weary at the thought of having 2 more weeks to go.  As I watched the unfolding scene of birds flying in and out of one of those abandoned half finished structures my heart became heavy and I cried out, “Lord why is this bothering me so and why is this so unsettling in my spirit?”  He spoke to me and said, “This is a sign of great poverty”.

When I came back to the United States I tried to put those feelings and images behind me thinking that maybe I was just tired and needed rest.  I thought I could pick up where I left off in the role of ministering as a Pastor’s wife, conference and retreat speaker.

After several months had passed the Lord began to wake me up at night with a slide show of the images I had seen in Africa.  I felt as if I was there.  In prayer, in the still hours of the morning, the familiar feelings of poverty closed in around me.

I sought the Lord earnestly, asking Him to release me from this.  After some time, I finally surrendered and He began to speak and I began to listen. 

It has been a little over two years since Africa and only through much midnight prayer and unending days of Bible Study that I now am beginning to understand the work the Lord began in my heart in Africa.

That work is “Wise Women Build”.

I pray that “Wise Women Build” will give you the tools, equipment and materials you need in order to build and complete the house He has called you to build.  I pray for you to receive the knowledge and the wisdom of how to read the “Blue-Print” in order to build an enduring house and leave a legacy for those who will come after you.  “The Wise Woman Builds Her House”. Proverbs 14:1