Sisters in Christ WOMEN TRANSFORMED BY THE LOVE OF CHRIST

from Her Voice Magazine - Fall/Winter 2024

by Brainerd Dispatch and Echo Journal

JOEY HALVORSON

BY LOUISE HUNT

It is 8:30 a.m. on a crisp Saturday morning in the St. Francis Catholic Church social hall. The room slowly starts to fill with the aroma of coffee along with the animated faces of women of varying ages and seasons in life, each with her own life story. A spirit of excitement, camaraderie and love prevails, as the women anticipate the morning ahead: a life-changing program filled with inspiring talks and discussion, time for prayer and reflection and joyous music of praise and worship.

These women are involved in an outreach ministry called Sisters in Christ, which is focused on leading women to an intentional response to their call for holiness by teaching them to live out their Christian identities and to unite their hearts to Christ. All women ages 18 and older and from any faith background are welcome.

After personally participating in the program for three years, I struggle for the words to adequately describe its beauty and impact. The program got its start five years ago when God placed on the heart of Connie Bruesch, a need to bring women together. Connie, founder of Transformed by Love Ministries, a nonprofit ministry of healing, prayerfully began writing the content of the program, hearing from God, “Just tell them your story.”

Prayer, reflection, praise and worship are part of the program.

- Member from Sartell

An average of about 165 women a year have participated in the program since 2020, attending most Saturdays from October through March. Sisters in Christ recently began its fifth year in the Brainerd area.

You might ask, “Why do so many women choose to commit their time and energy to Sisters in Christ, and what do they gain?” Healing and removing obstacles that keep them from doing God’s will are huge parts of the program, as well as answering the call to holiness, and the need to surrender to God to experience his healing power. In the third year of the program, members explore their charisms. Charisms are gifts of the Holy Spirit given to every baptized Christian to be used for the service of God and others.

In December 2022, Connie was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, and would spend the next 10 months hospitalized, battling the cancer. In August 2023, she underwent a bone marrow transplant. Despite the struggle of this journey, Connie joyfully embraced the pain and uncertainty of her situation, always confident God was doing a mighty work in her. She joyfully comments, “I have nothing to worry about; God loves me. I am his baby girl!” She is confident that “all is as it should be,” and that God has great plans for her and all of us.

Each year at the end of the session there is a time for members to share the graces granted to them by God through the program. Last spring I was a part of the group that witnessed the powerful sharing of some of the members. A woman who had a challenging year shared how the support from her Sisters in Christ friends, who had been praying about a situation in her family, had greatly impacted her life in a positive way. Another woman shared how, because of

Sisters in Christ, she had put past burdens of lack of self-worth behind her. She went on to share while on vacation, several strangers stopped her to comment on her inner beauty — something no one ever expressed before.

One woman shared how her small group at Sisters had bonded into a social group, opening their hearts to each other. They began meeting outside the regular group time and looking for ways to glorify God. A woman from Sartell shared that to her, it is worth the hour-long drive she makes to attend. She states “having Jesus in your heart makes things come out that you didn’t know were there — Christ shining through you!”

Perhaps the words of Lindsey Ramponi, a participant in the program, sum up the experience best. “When I think about my life before Sisters in Christ, I see a woman who was waiting to encounter God in a miraculous way. I half expected a gust of wind to sweep me off my feet or a powerful prayer experience that would leave my cup overflowing. I yearned for a deeper relationship with God, but it felt beyond my grasp. Sisters in Christ gave me the opportunity to see things about myself that I’ve never noticed before. It gave me relationships with other women in other walks of life to learn from. It gave me accountability to continue my journey to holiness. The woman I am today is still imperfect, but I know God has shown up miraculously in my life through Sisters in Christ. It wasn’t in a gust of wind or a supernatural answer to prayer. It was in the still, small voices of all the women I encountered through this program. God be praised for such a beautiful ministry in our community!”

This article was submitted by Louise Hunt on behalf of the Sisters in Christ group.

Sisters in Christ is a ministry of Transformed by Love Ministries. Anyone with an interest in Sisters in Christ may contact Ellen Cherne by e-mail at cherne@brainerd.net or may go to the Transformed by Love Ministries website at transformedbyloveministries and click on the Sisters in Christ tab. Meetings are in the social hall at St. Francis Catholic Church and there is no fee to join.