Women's Ministry

Gisele and Irla, originally uploaded by russandval.

We've been wanting to get a women's ministry off the ground for a while now and we finally decided to just do something. It's easy to get caught up in plans and dreams and never actually get started. At the missionary conference, I realized that I needed to stop dragging my feet so one day during church, I asked Alicia (the other half of the women's ministry) if we could have an event in February. I was running the slides that day so I quickly made an announcement slide and we started advertising it. At that point I really had no plan.

To be honest, I didn't have much of a plan until Saturday and even then it was sketchy. I didn't share the workload so I ended up stressed out and wandering around the grocery store, trying to figure out what to feed people. We can't have an oven at church and our microwave doesn't hold big pans so we're always limited as to what we can make. I was blessed when one of my "maybes" for the menu was on sale.

Saturday night, Russ and I got sick. We don't know if it was the chinese food we'd ordered that night or gripe (technically the flu but what ends up being the catch-all word when someone is sick). Sunday morning Russ wasstill too sick to go to church but because I had refused to share the responibility, I had to go. I felt much better, though, which really makes me suspect the sweet and sour chicken.

God got me through the day, though, and made everything run smoothly. (One exception was the mocha cake, which as Lauren kept reminding me was "ugly", but we cut it up before anyone saw it so no one was the wiser.)

About twenty women of all ages stayed. After lunch, I had them fill out a survey asking what they would like the women's ministry to be. Then we made salvation bracelets which have different color beads to symbolize our paths to salvation. I gave them a little card with Bible verses for each color so if someone asks about their bracelet, they have answers ready.

I think we're going to try to have activities every month now. I guess I'll only get to go to one more before we leave for furlough. Maybe this time I'll share the work!