Obstacles! There isn’t a person in the world that hasn’t faced obstacles. When they are small, almost unnoticeable, it is easy to walk over them. Medium obstacles may require a little more ingenuity and time, but we are able to climb over them without much difficulty. However, for many of us, it is the seemingly insurmountable obstacles which tend to stop us dead in our tracks and give us the hardest time. Is it here that our plans and dreams tend to die - or do they just begin?
Anita Grace Lie Carman, founder and president of Inspire Women in Houston, Tex., who was born in Hong Kong when it was a British Colony, knows firsthand about facing all kinds of obstacles. In her book, When Dreams Won’t Die, The Autobiography and Birth Story of Inspire Women, Anita writes, “…God allowed the suffering of the real world to enter my private world so that He could one day send me out in His name with the message of hope.” For Anita, obstacles turned into a calling, mere stepping stones guiding her to know God’s purpose, to make Him known, and to share the hope found only in Jesus Christ.
Growing up in the sixties when there were communist uprisings in her city, Anita’s nights were shaken with riots and the sound of mobs and tear gas exploding in the distance. In the morning, in her pristine white uniform, she took a deep breath and ran as fast as she could past the gate of her mission school. Newspapers had reported that those against the Christian faith were leaving bombs at the gates of Christian schools. In addition to the political turbulence, there was violence in the neighborhood she grew up in. Innocent children were abused, a close friend was raped. Her world was filled with people just trying to make it. When she walked past a puddle of blood on the street covered with newspaper, she heard someone had lost hope and jumped from a building. “There were days,” she recalls, “when I felt life was backing me up against a wall and that the fear of life would destroy me.”
In the midst of all of this, God was preparing Anita for a unique ministry to women from all backgrounds and experiences of life. It began with the dream her mother had for her children to live in America before the Communists took over Hong Kong in 1997. It also began through Anita’s childhood prayer in the heat of the riots; she was 11, “God, if you can see me, if you can find me among the millions in my city, please help me reach the free land of America.” The dream was realized in the summer of 1974, as Anita, 17, and her older sister packed everything they owned into four suitcases and boarded a plane for America. But it was not without heartache, five months before their mother’s dream was realized for her daughters, she took her own life. While Anita and her sibling’s exit visas were approved – her parents’ were denied which caused her mother to lose hope that she would ever see her children again. Anita arrived in the U.S. feeling like an emotional orphan and having no idea how the story would end. “Even when all hope for fulfillment of a dream is gone,” Anita wrote, “our heart secretly longs for the dream that refuses to be buried. How do you live with the events that robbed you of your childhood, your health, and your loved ones? How do you restore the years the locusts have eaten? How do you make peace with a potential that is frustrated? How do you embrace a new future when your heart is tied to dreams in your past?”
“It can’t be done” is not a statement you will ever hear from Anita. Instead you will find prayer, perseverance, passion, praise, promises, and God’s power. These words are the pillars of Inspire Women, a ministry which God started through Anita to “inspire women to connect their lives to God’s purpose and to fund scholarships to train God’s servant leaders to serve in missions and ministry.” From the first Inspire Women’s conference on Nov. 17, 2001, God used Anita to establish the Inspire Women’s organization in May of 2003. 1 Anita asked the Lord, “Is this how the story ends?” He answered, “This is where the story begins.” All of Anita’s past was just preparation for the future God had in store for her. God allowed the pain to stretch her heart to have more compassion so she would be able to walk alongside, encourage, show grace, and give hope to women who are beaten down by life like she was. God had a plan for Anita – He wanted her to give women God’s Word so they could discover His purpose in their lives – “a purpose that no human or event could ever rob from them.” This is Anita’s heartbeat, her passion, and her mission.
Another way God prepared Anita for Inspire Women is her mother’s dream for Anita to receive and excel in her education. Training and educating women spiritually is at the heart of Inspire Women. Anita attended a mission school from elementary through high school. Here she learned English because Hong Kong was a British Colony and chose French as a foreign language. Anita writes, “…on looking back, I see that all things work together for good for those who trust God. I learned that language helps you understand a culture. Learning different languages helps you to step into someone else’s world and way of doing things.” Another evidence that God knew what He was doing as He was preparing her for Inspire Women.
Anita’s education continued and excelled just as her mother had hoped. She attended and graduated from the University of Mississippi, finishing a four year program in two years, at the age of 19. Next, she earned her M.B.A. from the State University of New York. From there she headed for her first management consulting job in Washington D.C. and later held a job with Exxon in New Jersey. It was here she met her husband Bob Carman. For years, Anita struggled with defining herself. She plunged into academics, got married, and she was on the fast and furious track up the corporate ladder of a top management consulting firm when she first sensed God redirecting her life. After her first son was born, she heard God’s voice calling her to “Follow Me!” Anita tried to negotiate but God had spoken so she said, “My mouth has proclaimed you but now my life must choose you!” So with that God put Anita on a track where He entrusted her with His mission. In 1985, Bob was relocated to Houston, Tex. Anita said, “When I arrived in Houston, I thought, ‘I’ve lost everything I built in corporate America. God was thinking, ‘Now the story can begin, The Founder of Inspire Women has arrived in Houston, Texas!’”
After graduating top of her class from Dallas Theological Seminary and working as the Vice President of Special Programs and Special Assistant to the President at the College of Biblical Studies, God showed Anita the need in women to be inspired to live God’s dreams and to have the funds to be trained in the programs that will best prepare them for their calling. In May of 2003, Anita left the College of Biblical Studies to establish a ministry which had zero in the bank, no office space or infrastructure but had a clear vision from God to inspire His daughters across ethnicities, denominations, and economic levels for maximum missions and ministry.
Just Between Us (JBU) is delighted to have the privilege and honor to introduce you to Anita and God’s amazing calling on her life.
JBU:
When did you accept Christ as your Savior?
Anita: I don’t recall a specific day, but it was when I was in the elementary mission school. From an early age I was deeply moved by God’s sacrifice of His son, Jesus, and always wanted more of God. I remember going to chapel every day and at age 10 talking to God, longing to have more of Him, but not knowing then that God reveals Himself to me in His Word.
JBU:
How do you balance the responsibilities of home life and ministry?
Anita: I allow God to decide what gets on my platter. I don’t have the freedom to do things just because others expect them. I feel bad when women pressure me to do things by saying, “We’re all expected to do this, so you must too.” I ask God what He thinks and He’s told me I don’t own my time. When I tried to conform to what others were doing I was a mess. Over the years, I have learned to just do what God puts on my platter and not try to fit in or to get others to like me.
JBU:
What is the hardest challenge you have had to face in ministry?
Anita: Losing those I counted on as my co-laborers in Christ. When the Lord called home my friends Doris Morris and Marge Caldwell, I lost both my spiritual grandmothers in one year. God taught me that relationships are a blessing, but they can also be only for a season. Ultimately, God is the one who begins and who will finish the dream with us. More than that, Doris and Marge are already standing on the mountaintop and they are cheering me on to keep going.
Peter, James, and John were a trio who went everywhere with Jesus. Yet when the ministry began after Jesus ascended into heaven, we learn that Herod put James to death. The trio is no longer a trio. However, Peter and John kept going. The Apostle Paul experienced a different kind of abandonment when Demas deserted him because he loved the world. I can surely feel his pain because some of my greatest discouragement has come from those people who withdrew their support at a time when we were most weary. I grieve their leaving because I long so much for everyone to reach the mountaintop of victory together.
JBU:
Tell us about the woman who has most invested in your life and what are some ways she has come alongside you?
Anita: Carol Logan Byrd listened to every paper I wrote in the seven years I was at Dallas Theological Seminary. When God established Inspire Women, she prayed for God’s favor and protection over my life. While she could not travel with me because of her health, she was only a cell phone away. I would download every detail of every meeting and she provided me feedback and her spiritual discernment. She inspired the saying at Inspire Women that “The best part of the journey is You!” What we will remember in ministry will not be the big projects, but the friends who walked in faith with us. We will remember how we co-labored in the trenches and encouraged each other in the midst of setbacks. Our hearts will be filled to overflowing as we remember what we meant to each other. And we will say, “Wow! That was one of the best times in our lives!”
JBU:
What types of women does Inspire Women minister to?
Anita: We draw a high percentage of women from different races, economic levels, and backgrounds ─ which is one of Inspire Women’s unique callings. They come from over 725 different churches. From our citywide events, we discover those who need financial assistance to be trained to serve at their God given potential. Approximately, 60 percent of our scholarship applicants come from backgrounds of abuse and see their training as giving them a chance to transform their pain into a positive ministry to those coming from similar backgrounds. Forty percent are community and ministry leaders whose churches and families do not have the funds to train them for ministry to their multi-ethnic communities.
JBU:
What is the biblical basis for this ministry?
Anita: Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them.”
The full expression of God in this world can only be revealed when both God’s sons and daughters represent His image. When God’s daughters are suffering from low self-esteem and a lack of understanding of the gifts God has entrusted to them, they sit back as spectators. Instead of rising to their God given potential, they hide a song in their hearts that they never sing. Years are wasted and much is lost when God’s full spiritual army is not engaged in battle. God’s kingdom plans suffer when God’s daughters live in fear and lack self-confidence instead of boldly receiving their calling and exercising their gifts to complete God’s vision for a community.
JBU:
Do you see Inspire Women taking root in other cities?
Anita: God birthed Inspire Women in Houston, Tex. He entrusted us with a $7.5 million endowment to ensure a basic level of funding to train the women in our city for generations to come. This is essential because there is nothing more discouraging than to desire to go full steam ahead in your preparation only to find there are no available funds. Once the endowment is raised for Houston, the vision of Inspire Women will begin to travel. Even before Houston is completed, I see God showing us the need in other cities. Clearly, He has already gone ahead of us to prepare the way.
JBU:
Where have you seen the women go and serve as a result of fulfilling their calling?
Anita: Women have gone to share God’s Word in villages in Africa. They have gone to prisons and abuse centers. They have shaped ministries for women, children, and youth. They have started nonprofit organizations to assist victims of domestic violence, and minister to women in transition.
JBU:
Where do you see Inspire Women five years from now?
Anita: Today, Inspire Women’s focus is on inspiring the masses and empowering women who are stepping into their calling. As God leads believers to leave us assets and property in their estate planning as their way to invest in women across ethnicities, I see our potential as an umbrella organization not only to develop young disciples, but to assist those proven in ministry who need encouragement to get to the next level. There are so many ministries with so many needs, but a central ministry that surveys the entire scene of what God is doing in a community is in a place to direct funds to bring about a united effort of the entire body of Christ in action.
JBU:
What words of encouragement would you give to other women as they deal with their past experiences and think that there is no way God can use them, or they can never fulfill the calling God has placed in their life because of obstacles?
Anita: Your suffering and heartaches from the past were never meant to limit you. Instead they can be a catalyst for even greater ministry. If you run from or deny your past, you miss a key clue to the work God wants you to finish on earth. If you receive your past suffering as the cross God entrusted you to bear, you begin to rejoice in your suffering. You begin to say, “Wow! From all the people in the world, God trusted me with this cross to carry.” You begin to see that God’s heart is broken and He raised you up to experience the pain so you can now go in His name to make the changes He wants to make, or to declare victory in what the world regards as a bleak situation. It is in our weakness that God reveals His power.
As for obstacles, no human can thwart God’s plan. God is responsible for His own dreams. Therefore, when God has spoken a dream for your life, you don’t have to make it happen; you simply step into what is happening. You walk through the doors that open, but you are not responsible for the doors that don’t open. If you are frustrated with a closed door or a missed opportunity, this is a lie from the devil to make you feel like there is something God is withholding from you. This is so far from the truth. If there is something we need for God’s dream for us to come true, He will provide it. Even in our mistakes, God is perfectly able to finish the work He began in us. He is the God who created something out of nothing. He can reinvent, re-engineer, rebirth a new dream and a new plan for our lives.
I know what it’s like to build a dream while having no resources or prominent family name that can help. But I also know what it’s like to have God Almighty by your side and watch the flood waters part and to hear how one word from His mouth silences the most turbulent storms. There are no obstacles for God, His dreams won’t die and it is a true privilege when He invites us to come along for the ride.
More About Inspire Women
Inspire Women, a non-profit 501 (c) organization based in Houston, Tex., exists to inspire women across ethnicities, denominations, and economic levels to connect them with God’s purpose and to fund biblical resources and scholarships to train them for maximum missions and service.
Ministry Initiatives
“When Dreams Die” City-wide Rally. Held yearly, it replenishes leaders and affirms God’s purpose for them. From these events, the organization searches for women to train in accredited Bible colleges and specialized programs that best fit their calling.
Inspire Women Luncheons. These affirm women of excellence and raise funds for biblical training.
Inspire Women’s Leadership Formation Center. Offers classes which include special seminars and speakers for further training.
On-line Gift Assessments. These are offered year round to help women discover their spiritual gifts, identify their training needs, and develop a training plan to help them find and step into God’s calling.
Raise Scholarships and Endowment Funds. This enables women to pursue biblical education and obtain training for effective ministry, regardless of ethnicity or economic level.
~ By Laura Leathers
RELATED RESOURCES