Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, equipping the next generation of believers,

pastors, and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel.

On today's episode, you'll hear a breakout message from TGC's 2024 Women's Conference.

Whatever state you're coming in, I hope you'll find the permission right now to just

take a deep breath and know that we are going to spend time in the word, and I pray

that it is like water for your soul.

My family and I actually lived for about 14 years in the Middle East. My husband and I were

the International Mission Board for almost 20 years. All three of our kids were born overseas.

It's a big part of my story that has shaped me in a lot of

profound ways. If I ask you guys for a favorite vacation memory, I bet something would come to

mind for each one of you. For me, hands down, I wouldn't even have to think about it. The last spring before our family left

Turkey, we had been living there for 14 years. It's where two of my kids were born. It's where I had

done life with women. My oldest daughter, Lois, who turns 20 at the end of the month, was two

months old when we moved to the city.

So all of her memories were shaped there.

But our kids had not really seen a lot of the Turkish countryside because when we had a chance for a vacation, we tried to go see family.

And so our last spring in Turkey, we decided to take a road trip.

An epic road trip. We rented a van. We had a young

couple who was traveling with us, and we went to drive all the way through the parts of Asia Minor

where Paul would have been, where we had the birth of some of the first Christian churches,

the churches of the Revelation, and the morning

we were in Ephesus. No one was there. And so we're sitting in the amphitheater. And the reason

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