Month: January 2018

bloghome, Lutheran Women in Mission

Celebrating our Senior LWML District Presidents!

 

Celebrating our Senior LWML District Presidents!

As you probably know 21 of our 40 LWML district presidents (DPs) are elected one biennium and 19 are elected the other biennium. This past week in St. Louis, 21 of our presidents attended their final Board of Directors Meeting as representatives of their districts. This is the year of district conventions and elections will be held and new leaders will take their places as presidents in their districts.

These “senior” DPs, as they are known, have been in office for four years. Past LWML President Kay Kreklau welcomed them to their first board meeting in January 2015. I’m sure as they look back they remember how much they didn’t know and how nervous they were. Now four years later they can look back and see how God walked with them and provided them with what they needed to do their jobs.

Those senior DPs were there to welcome me to my first Board meeting in 2016. They have been instrumental in celebrating our 75th Anniversary, welcoming a new LWML logo, and examining convention changes, restructure proposals, and financial issues for the organization. They have worked hard for the national organization besides the work they do in their districts.

As they gave their farewell last week, they presented me with a knockdown, gorgeous quilt. This quilt was made of fabric given from each district and constructed by LWML Nebraska North District President, Crystal Miller. To say it is fabulous in an understatement! In the corners, the new icon of LWML and the logo from Albuquerque convention are stitched. In the third corner is a butterfly with all their names on it. I believe there are around 400 butterflies on it either appliqued or quilted into it.

I’m going to bring it to convention in Mobile so all of you can admire it. I’m so honored to receive such a fantastic gift.

My butterfly theme, “Engage, Encourage, Equip, and Enjoy” has represented what I, personally, see as what LWML Women in Mission do. The butterfly represents God’s grace that is at the heart of our faith, our work, and our joy.

Thanks to all the senior DPs for what they have done for the Lord!

Thanks for the lovely reminder of the abundance of God’s grace! It’s overwhelming.

Love, Patti

 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God    (Ephesians 2: 8).

bloghome, Lutheran Reflection

For the Birds

Birds at bird feeder

You can waste a lot of time watching birds, can’t you! Especially during this recent cold snap! I have multiple birdfeeders and suet cakes hanging from trees in the yard positioned so I can see them from the kitchen area. They were certainly busy the past few days as the temperatures here in Tulsa dipped to 6 degrees overnight. (I know that’s not much to my LWML sisters in Iowa!)

It was interesting to see that a lot of the time they didn’t want to share with the other birds. Some of them seemed to spend more time chasing other birds away than they spent eating the seed. Sometimes it was more than two of them going at it.

Given the abundance of birdseed, there was no way that one bird could consume the entire birdfeeder full of seed. You wanted to yell at them that there was enough for all so just cool down, eat, and enjoy.

Do you ever wonder if God sees humans doing the same thing? Fighting to claim “their stuff”? Not realizing that God has provided enough for everyone? Spending so much time trying to “get more stuff” that they don’t enjoy or appreciate the stuff they have already been given?

One of the things I love about my LWML sisters is that they recognize that the Lord has given us all enough and it is our privilege to make sure that the blessings are shared and distributed to all. We aren’t perfect at it but we try. We are always asking, “how can we help?” which translates into “how can we share the blessings we have been blessed with by God?”

Of course, the best spiritual gift, that of our salvation in Jesus Christ, is what we want to share the most. That’s why our life is seen as Lutheran Women in Mission. By sharing our time, talents and treasure the Holy Spirit works through us for those who don’t know the Savior. We know that there is plenty of God’s grace to go around for all! Let’s not be like the birds but be people who welcome and share this gift with everyone.

The birds have all gotten their fill and are roosting in the big magnolia tree out back. Being filled up with seed has brought them a sense of contentment and peace. God desires all of us to live in His good grace and to be filled up with contentment and peace as well. May we be found faithful in sharing this abundant grace of our Savior to all.

Love, Patti

[Jesus said] “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:26)

 

 

Lutheran Women in Mission, Missions for God

Coins Go Rolling!

Someone dropped their Mite Box! Coins go rolling around and people scramble to help find them all! It’s another Mite Box Sunday at our church — the first Sunday of every month when we invite the congregation to bring their Mite Box offerings in and add them to the big Mite Box. We then dedicate those offerings to God for spreading of the Gospel message.

It reminded me of the power of those Mite Box collections when they go rolling out of the box. Just this past month we have delivered the first two of our mission grant awards.

One was to Franklin Avenue Mission who sponsors Mercy House for Women and Children in Flint, Michigan to remodel, add on to, and provide a shelter. In Flint 46% of the general population and 66% of the children live below the poverty line. This mission outreach will help unwed, pregnant, abused, homeless Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic mothers and their children.  Can you see those coins rolling out into the community?

The second grant was the grant for Current Missionary Need to support LCMS missionaries overseas. As you know, LCMS missionaries must raise their own money to finance their mission work. The $100,000 grant will provide $10,000 each to assist nine missionaries/missionary families already serving in Kenya, Togo and Ethiopia, Africa; Hong Kong; Peru; and St. Petersburg, Russia, as well as another missionary who has been called to serve in Thailand. Can you see those coins rolling out into the world?

I hope whenever you see a spilled Mite Box you’ll think of those coins spilling out into the world — making a difference in someone’s life for eternity.

Let’s keep those coins rolling!

Patti

 

And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, “Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all; For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had”  (Luke 21:1–4 KJV).

Check Presentation inside the offices at Mission Central

Check Presentation at Mission Central
LWML Treasurer Marilyn Schroeder presenting the check to the personnel at Mission Central for the grant Current Missionary Need

Check Presentation to Mercy House personnel, pictured outside of Mercy House's facility

Check Presentation to Mercy House
Pictured from left to right: Sue Aussen, Mercy House Program Manager; Michigan District President Susan Gruber, Kaye Wolff, Vice President of Special Focus Ministries; Pastor Bradley Yops, Mercy House Director; MaryBeth Heikkinen, Michigan District Vice President of Communication.

Lutheran Reflection, Missions for God

Spreading the Good News — Then and Now

I’m writing this on Epiphany Sunday evening here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At home we have added the Wise Men to our manger scene. In church our Gospel message was the account of the visit of the wise men from the Gospel of Matthew.

The Lutheran Study Bible has some wonderful notes on this passage so I would refer you to them rather than do my own comments. However, I got to thinking of their return to the East where they came from after experiencing and seeing what they saw. What did they tell people?

My husband and I, my son, John, and my cousin and his wife went back to Pasadena after Christmas to work on the Lutheran Layman’s League (LLL), Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) Rose Parade float. It was so fun and I hope you saw it on TV if not in person. I met quite a few LWML women working as Petal Pushers on various floats for the parade from all over the U.S. Way to go LWML!! But I digress.

While there, I had a chance to visit with Eric Gates, LHM’s regional director for Africa and the Middle East, about the work that our grant #7, Christian Hope through Mass Media in Egypt, is funding. He was recently returned from Cairo where a November 6th taping involved more than 40 people including cameramen, actors, writers, and back-stage production crew. This is being done through a partnership with LHM and SAT-7, the first and largest Middle East and North African Christian satellite network, co-producing a television series from the SAT-7 studio in Cairo, Egypt, that will begin airing in January 2018. This broadcast will potentially reach tens of millions of viewers in more than 20 countries spanning from as far west as Morocco to as far east as Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

I often wonder what the wise men told people as they journeyed back east to their home countries. It’s so exciting to see that the Word about our Savior continues to travel back to the East. As we fund this mission grant we pray that the Holy Spirit will open hearts along the way.

Learn more about this TV programming in the January-February 2018 issue of The Lutheran Layman or at lhm.org/MENA or lwml.org/mission-grants.

Happy New Year!

Patti

 

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6).

 

Learn more about LWML here

Lutheran Reflection

Traditions

Learn more about LWML here

 

Happy New Year! Our guest blogger this week is our LWML Junior Pastoral Counselor, Rev. Mitchel Schuessler. He and his wife, Penny, live in Troy, Illinois where he is pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church. 

 

I pray that your 2017 went well and 2018 will be a blessing to you. Me? 2017 saw me elected to the office of LWML Junior Pastoral Counselor. WOW! Never thought it would really happen but the Lord does amazing things.

Do you have a favorite tradition you do around Christmas/New Years? Penny and I do. We make raviolis on the day after Christmas. It is always an adventure that ends in a very tasty fashion. It is amazing how, even after doing this for years, we forget what we are doing. After the first set of raviolis come out of the press, we start to remember. “Oh yeah, that is what we do,” is often said. Fun times and good eats are a part of this Schuessler/Rex tradition.

What tradition do you have in your family? One tradition that I never had in my family was the LWML. As I look back, I wish that my mom would have been involved in the LWML but she was not. I did not grow up with the LWML but I did raise my family knowing and participating in the LWML in various ways.

Penny and I have been active throughout the past 35 years, which is hard to imagine. The day we brought our daughter Rachael home from the hospital, I took her over to the church at Trinity, Harvel, IL, to meet the ladies of the LWML society. From that point on, she has been a part of the LWML, a tradition we have handed down to her and to our son Matthew. We look forward to one day passing it on to the next generation.

Happy New Year and enjoy those traditions.

Rev. Mitchel Schuessler
LWML Junior Pastoral Counselor

Pastor Mitch and his wife Penny

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