Conference becomes book for Pastor Gray

Pastor Eloise Gray of Dover’s Mt. Olive Baptist Church and her husband Tim sheltered in place for almost a year during the Covid-19 pandemic.

An outgoing spiritual leader with an international ministry based on outreach, Gray was dismayed as social distancing protocols shut down not only in-person church services but also an annual “Women of Valor” conference she founded and has helped host in Crescent for the last 20 years.

The tumult of rising racial tensions nationwide as well as in Oklahoma added to her concerns.

Gray did what she could to continue to encourage all those from whom she was socially distanced – through regular phone calls and reading books aloud to isolated youngsters through Facebook Live videos, among other activities.

But then she began hearing a “little voice” telling her she needed to write about the Women of Valor conference.

How It Began

After years of prayer, planning and saving, fellow pastors Dr. Edwin and Lovenia House of Crescent were able to replace their decrepit church building with a newer building moved to land the church owned in the late ’90s.

“When I saw the new building, I said it would make a great place for a women’s conference,” Gray said.

After encouragement from the Houses, Gray held the first “Women of Valor” event, which began with 160 attendees and has grown each year, spinning off companion men’s and youth conferences along the way.

The Writing Project

Gray’s task to “write about the conference” was not initially clear.

She began gathering information about each year’s events and compiling what she called a “historical document.”

“Then one Sunday I was at the church and heard the Lord say to me, ask about 10 speakers from the conferences to write about the year that they spoke,” she said.

“I started calling them and said ‘I’m writing this, uh...’ because I still didn’t know what exactly it was I was writing,” she said.

“That’s when I heard ‘why don’t you call it what it is – it’s a book.’

“By that time, I had done a lot of research. I’d found all of the old conference programs and most of the letters that I wrote each year to the women who were coming to that conference.

“I was still working on a historical document, but when I heard it was supposed to be a book, that changed everything.”

Although at first too busy to assist, the Gray’s daughter, Dilcie Perez, a a college professor in El Cerrito, Calif., eventually lent her skills to help whip the book into shape.

“When I first sent it to her, she said it was a mess but she had a student who could help,” Gray said. “She sent it to the student and she corrected the grammatical and punctuation errors.

“But it still needed help so my daughter said she would help me.

“She kept telling me I needed to rewrite and add to so I went back and studied scriptures to include and made each year of the conference a different chapter.”

Eventually, the book included prayers written by Gray, as well as her accounts of God’s hand in starting and continuing the annual conference as an ecumenical event open to women of all denominations and all races.

“After about the fourth conference, God began to show me a vision to help these women learn who they were in Him and to find their purpose and trust in Him.”

She shared that information in the pages of what became – much to her surprise – a 176-page book.

Illustrations for each chapter were provided by Kevin Jones, a Midwest City man who had provided Gray with illustrations for other church projects.

Gray’s hope and intention for the book is much the same as the conference itself.

“It’s primarily a book to encourage women to study who they are as women and trust God to help with that process,” she said.

Gray wants to help women avoid some of her own struggles early on when she was not accepted as a female preacher.

“The conference was to help women understand that whatever God has called them to do, He will equip them to do it and He will make a way,” she said.

Women of Valor 2021

Gray said the Women of Valor Conference will be back this year, but when and where it will happen and what it will look like are still matters for prayer.

“What I would really like to do if I can’t have a regular conference is to at least have a tea or some other gathering where I can introduce the book,” she said.

She’s attending another women’s conference in July and hopes to glean ideas there of the best way to host Women of Valor in the waning days of the pandemic.

She’s also planning some book signings in Oklahoma City as well as in Kingfisher, if possible.

At the encouragement of a friend, she has named Juneteenth (June 19) as her “Flash Day,” encouraging everyone who would like to order a book to do so on that day to help boost her Amazon rating.

Despite her social isolation over the last year or so, Gray said the book and her online reading videos (which have drawn adults as well as children as faithful followers) have kept her from feeling depressed or lonely.

“Today and every day, God is good,” she said.

GRAY’S BOOK is available for purchase now on Amazon (www.amazon.com). She writes the following in the synopsis:

It is my sincere hope that after reading this history of our twenty year journey of faith for the Women of Valor conference that you will:

– Gain a fresh revelation of who you are in Jesus, how He has made you a unique and special child of Heaven.

–Be renewed in your God given purpose.

– Your faith will be strengthened and renewed for whatever journey God has you on.

– God is calling women to stand and be strong in Him, grounding themselves in His word and His spirit.

– I pray that you will feel the power and presence of our heavenly Father as you read the pages of this book.