Yael Eckstein, president and global CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, brought thousands of women together at the Turning Point USA Women’s Leadership Summit in Texas with a speech that wove together personal loss, Biblical wisdom, and a challenge to embrace God’s calling — however fearful the moment.
Eckstein arrived straight off a plane from Israel, where she lives and works, and opened with characteristic self-deprecating humor. “Have you ever felt like your life is everything you’ve never dreamed of?” she asked the crowd. “I’m just a Jewish woman from Israel raising four children, trying to listen to what God is saying to me every single day and follow exactly where he leads.”
At the heart of her address — which followed Erika Kirk’s — was a single Hebrew word: hineni — “here I am.” She invited the audience to say it aloud, explaining that the word carries a meaning far deeper than its translation. “It doesn’t mean ‘God, I have it all figured out.’ And it doesn’t mean, ‘God, I’m fearless.’ … It simply means, ‘God, I’m available. God, I’m listening. God, here I am.’”
“I think that word matters now more than ever because if we’re honest, the world feels very heavy,” she continued. “We open up our phones and we see war and division, hatred, loneliness, anxiety. Can you guys relate to that? It can feel like darkness is winning, right? We just saw that. Who interrupted Erika’s speech? It was darkness.”
“But I have seen something else. I have seen that when people choose to open up their eyes to where God is moving and decide to bring light to the darkness, like what each one of you is doing, miracles happen,” she declared. “I have seen biblical prophecy come to fruition in our generation. I’ve seen Christians and Jews stand together in ways that generations before us could have only dreamed about and that Jesus would have been happy with.”
Eckstein spoke candidly about the moment her own capacity to say hineni was tested. Seven and a half years ago, her father, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein — who built the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews into the largest nonprofit organization in Israel — passed away suddenly, and she was asked to step into his role. She was young, grieving, and terrified. “I remember thinking, ‘Okay God, surely you have the wrong person,’” she recalled. But drawing on the biblical examples of Moses, Esther, Ruth, Mary, and David — none of whom felt ready — she found her footing. “God was never looking for perfection. He was looking for willingness.”
Standing before the audience, she described that pivotal moment: “In that darkest moment in my life, a mourning child with shaking hands and a terrified heart, I answered God the only way I knew how. I looked up to the heavens and I said, ‘Hineni — here I am. Use me, Lord, in whatever way you see fit.’” The result, she told the crowd, has been more than one million people reached annually through her organization’s humanitarian work — feeding the hungry, sheltering Holocaust survivors, and delivering aid to war zones in Israel, Ukraine, and Ethiopia.
Her message grew even more personal when she revealed that her 19-year-old daughter is currently serving in the Israeli army, stationed less than half a mile from the Gaza Strip and commanding 80 soldiers. “As a mother, I can tell you there are nights where I want to hold on to her so tightly and never let her go,” Eckstein said, her voice steady. “But then I remember this: light is not built through comfort alone. It’s built through courage.”
She closed by reframing the conference’s name — HER — adding a letter: HERE. “The greatest thing that each one of you can offer God is not perfection. It’s your presence, your openness, your willingness to answer when he calls.”
Her final charge to the crowd was simple and sweeping: “When God calls your name, don’t wait until you’re fully prepared. Answer him with faith, with courage, with an open heart. … Say it — say it every single morning when you wake up: Hineni. Lord, here I am.”
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