Patti Ross

Last week was a week of meetings in St. Louis for the LWML. The district archivist-historians met with LWML Archivist-Historian Caroline Honeycutt and worked at Concordia Historical Institute as well as learning more about preserving their district’s history.

The Convention Programming Committee met to firm up more plans for the LWML convention coming up in Mobile, AL, June 20-23, 2019. We have great speakers, worship leaders, Bible study leaders, and activities to make it a great experience for anyone attending.

Then the Executive Committee came in for their meeting and were followed by the entire Board of Directors and advisory personnel for the Board of Directors’ meeting. They passed along the grants to be considered for funding at the convention, selected convention offering recipients, approved bylaw amendments to be brought to the delegates, and had a fun “mite challenge” that raised $27,000 for the mission grants. These women are committed—Time, Talent and Treasure!

Group photograph of the LWML executive committee and the LWML district presidents at the International Center of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, in St. Louis. LCMS Communications/Erik M. Lunsford

We also took time out to tour the LCMS International Center and met with LCMS President Matthew Harrison on the importance of the work of LWML in the larger church picture. Also, showing their appreciation by talking about specific missions helped were Office of International Missions head, Rev. Dan McMiller and Office of National Missions head, Rev. Robert Zagore.

Ministry to the Armed Forces, Chaplain Steven Hokana also thanked the group for the grant they received. Deaconess Ministries head, Grace Rao, stopped by the meeting to express her thanks and inform board members of how their contributions were being put to work.

Mary Hamilton, Grants Manager, Mission Advancement for LCMS commented, “Our staff, too, cherishes the personal connection with the LWML. The heart-warming passion for mission the ladies have is inspirational. Their prayers for our missionaries provide encouragement and renews their hearts and minds.”

In spite of the cold, blustery weather we received a very warm welcome from President Dale Meyer as he welcomed the Board members to Concordia Seminary campus with a “welcome home, LWML!” as we toured the new LWML offices and the campus. Some of the district presidents had arranged to meet the seminary students they support.

All told, it was a great week! Engage, Encourage, Equip and Enjoy! We did it all, thanks be to God and to Him be the glory for the opportunity to work together with all His talented, gifted, and called servants in LWML, in our church body, and in the mission fields!

Love, Patti

A busy week for LWML sisters. This week includes meetings in St. Louis of the Archivist-Historian Boot Camp, Convention Programming Committee, the Executive Committee, and the Board of Directors. We will be reviewing the past year and looking towards budgeting for the coming biennium that starts April 1, this year. (Remember to support the Mission Grants before March 31!)

It’s always encouraging to me to see the wonderful variety of women who have come together with no pay to volunteer to work for LWML and its leader, Jesus Christ our Savior. Many have learned new technology or meeting management, made new friends from all across the United States, gleaned new insights into some Bible passages, and generally “served the Lord with Gladness”. It’s part of our mission statement to enable women to use their God-given gifts in ministry.

And there are many gifts represented. Some of these women are retired and some use PTO time to attend from their work venues. There are real estate agents, nurses, manufacturing managers, teachers, government workers, musicians, lab researchers, missionaries, and dog- showers. Our Pastoral Counselors are full-time ministers with schools at their churches.

There is also a meeting of the district Archivist-Historians (A-H) taking place with LWML A-H Caroline Honeycutt. They will be learning about archiving, working at Concordia Historical Institute, and looking to things of the past to preserve for the future!

And we are all trying our best! I hope you will remember us in your prayers this week (actually, always!) as we do our best, calling on the Holy Spirit, to help us discern the will of God for our ministry efforts. Your District President will be at the Board of Directors meeting. Give her some encouragement via email before she travels on Wednesday.

Remember – Engage, Encourage, Equip and Enjoy is what we do in LWML. Please do it! I know we will in St. Louis this week.

Love, Patti

It’s time to put on your racing shoes!! LWML has 11 weeks to collect $449, 159.01 in order to meet the biennium’s Mission Goal. There are still grants to pay and other expenses that have to be fulfilled by March 31, the end of our 2-year Mission Goal cycle.

This past week the LWML Mission Grant Selection Committee met in St. Louis to go through 81 grant submissions for the next biennium and narrow those down to 31 to put on the ballot at our convention in June in Mobile, Alabama. They were all good opportunities to support missions and missionaries who, working with the Holy Spirit, are spreading the Gospel and doing works of mercy. It’s a shame to have to turn any of them down.

The grants we have this biennium are also great opportunities for you to support when you can’t do the work yourself or when you have a ministry that you are especially attuned to. But, we are short in our Mite Box offerings for grants. We still have several that need payment. If you go to our website, www.lwml.org and click on the Missions tab, you can see the grants that still have to be paid and a breakdown of each month’s Mite Box offering receipts.

What can you do to help? It’s easy to donate online and or to send a check to the LWML at our new address of 801 Seminary Place, Suite L010, St. Louis, MO 63105. Please keep our Mission Goal and the fulfillment of it in your prayers and then open your heart and pocketbook to give some extra offering to the Lord.

At the grant meeting it was discussed as it is every biennium, lowering the Mission Goal. Financing less ministry. Not having to work so hard. The economy is forecast to go down or stagnate, the church is losing membership, the LWML is not promoting the mission grants like they used to. Are we to give in to that type of thought? Are we that weak that we can’t take on a challenge and meet it? Are we to abandon the promises we made at the Albuquerque convention to those grant recipients depending on our financing?

I say NO! We are strong, we have prayer, we have resources, and we just need to work a little harder over the next 11 weeks! So put on your running shoes and let’s race to the finish, together!

Patti

The new year is upon us! We returned from Pasadena and Los Angeles last night. We worked as Lutheran Hour Ministries Petal Pushers on the Rose Parade floats and then visited our son, John, in Los Angeles.

We met so many wonderful people and renewed acquaintances with many others. It’s so great to do some “hands-on” work with people you usually just have meetings with or talk with on the phone. The floats were on display for two days following the parade. During that time Lutheran Hour Ministries has people at the float talking to people as they stop to admire the workmanship. They also have literature available for people to take and are invited to address a postcard to someone which has a picture of the float on it.

Here’s an update from Lou Marting.

We started with a supply of 9,000 2019 Ministry Booth post cards for our Joy to the World the Lord is Come! float. Before the end of the second post-parade day, we ran out.

Along with hundreds of face-to-face witnessing conversations during decorating, on the parade route, staging area, and post parade, over 1700 of the post cards were addressed and sent to destinations all around the country, even to many international locations. This significantly exceeded previous year’s efforts and provided a way to spread the message of the float to many individuals.

Stamps were placed on the post cards as a volunteer effort by those of a local churches’ men’s group.

It was a very good experience – all part of the mission of Bringing Christ to the Nations – and the Nations to the Church.

To God be the glory!

Maybe we should think about having postcards to mail from our convention in Mobile, Alabama this June 20-23, 2019!

Joy to the World the Lord is Come! Joy as we “Serve the Lord With Gladness” in the coming new year of our Lord!

Happy New Year!

Patti

Hello everyone and Happy New Year 2019! We are out in Pasadena working as Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) Petal Pushers on the LHM float that will be in the Rose Parade on New Year’s morning! What a fun experience this is! This is our third year to take part in the decorating of the floats. The LHM float is the only Christian float in the parade. It always includes Jesus. This year the theme of the parade is “The Melody of Life”. There are a lot of floats that have to do with music. The LHM float is called, “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come” and consists of a manger scene, with doves, bells, trumpets, and a group of people seated on the front as the choir. It’s all situated on a music scroll which unrolls the length of the float.

Watch the parade if you can. It starts at 10 a.m. Central time. The LHM float is about 2/3 of the way through the parade. If you watch on HGTV they don’t have commercials and the float is sure to be covered. We will be going to the parade around 6 a.m. and we are planning to go the football game that is between the Washington Huskies and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

There are quite a few LWML women here working on floats with the Petal Pushers. I talked with women from North Dakota, California, Iowa, and Michigan. Another fun thing the LWML Family does together!

Happy New Year!

Love, Patti

“God, who is outside of time has entered it to bring us out of it.”

I’m not sure where I got this quote. I like it because it makes me think. It makes me think about God’s majesty and how He transcends time and place. His omnipresence.

It seems appropriate for this week of Christmas. The majesty of God, which we can’t fully comprehend, comes to us in the humble form of a baby, which we can understand, to bring us outside of time, eternally, to live with that majestic God.

I hope it makes you think, too!

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God (Psalm 90:1-2).

From me and Bill, Merry Christmas to our LWML Family!

Peace. I don’t have any statistics to back me up but I’m betting that “peace” is one of the most frequently used words in Christmas advertising and marketing. Think of all the wishes for peace that you receive in your Christmas cards.

This quote I have from someone and the Mary Engelbreit picture quote from Eleanor Roosevelt remind me that peace is not something that can be wished to someone and magically they will have it! Peace needs to be worked at. It is not a thing, but an ongoing process. This is most easily illustrated by the various peace processes in our world that succeed, then fail, then are worked out again. In our personal lives we may reach a time of peace only to have life experiences take it away and the process starts again.

I know that there are times when I don’t work for peace. It’s easier to be apathetic and leave the peace process to someone else whether that’s world peace or personal peace. I have to remind myself when I see this note that I need to be working towards peace daily—working at it!

There’s one type of peace that I don’t have to work at and that’s the peace of God that Jesus Christ came into the world to give us. That peace is a gift. Through His death and resurrection He secured the “peace that passes understanding”—eternal life with Him after we leave this conflicted, less-than-peaceful world.

LWML—Lutheran Women in Mission, know about that peace. We serve to spread the message of that peace. God has invited us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to share His peace to all the earth. In this peace with God we are enabled to engage with each other for peace on earth—so that what God provides may be known everywhere.

I pray for God’s peace for you and for the world this Christmas season. With that peace in your hearts, engage in the peace process in your families, congregations, communities and the world.

Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:14).

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Patti

Last week I shared one of the notes I have around my desk area. This week I’ll share another.

“It will not bother me in the hour of death to reflect that I have been ‘had for a sucker’ by any number of imposters: but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need.” C.S. Lewis.

All my life I have felt compelled to help those less fortunate than me in material goods. I’m not bragging, I just think God stuck something in my genes! I have always been blessed to have the opportunity to share with others. My last job before “retiring” from nursing was clinic nurse at a social welfare agency’s free medical clinics. This quote was so meaningful to all of us who worked there. It was in the office. Many were the days where following clinics we’d sink into our chairs and bemoan the fact that we felt “taken advantage of” by those who could have paid or by those who “work the system.” However, my co-workers and I were then quick to recognize the ones who really needed the care, who perhaps, were at their wit’s end and out of patience, resources, or hope.

We may face “donation fatigue” at times, especially at year’s end and prior to Christmas. Don’t let yourself be lulled into the “I’ve got mine, let them get theirs”, or the “they’re taking advantage of the season” or other excuses for not sharing what God has given you. Be a good steward and allow God to be the Good Judge. Give cheerfully, even a small amount. It may be that only one of the people you help out was really in need, but you are the person that will help them.

I’m not making this up—as I was writing this my daily verse that got texted to me from YouVersion Bible app is Luke 6:37-38. Coincidence?

[Jesus said] “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Love, Patti

I have a quote above my desk from Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. “I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise”.

I’m facing another birthday on December the 9th. After trying for 10 years and enduring multiple miscarriages, my dear mother had me. I have carried the expectations of such a child all my life. True, my younger brother came along three years later. I was expected to be the perfect one, but my brother turned out the better.

This imperfect child has hidden in disguise for many years now. So I have lived a not-so-perfect-life. I lack the maturity I think I should have. How about you? We’re probably in the same boat. Thanks be to God that he forgives our imperfect, sinful existence through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He brings to us forgiveness of our sins and life eternal in Heaven – thanks be to God!

Also, do you find yourself in your thoughts or your brain, whatever, stuck at around age 35-40? I do. I still expect I’ll be able to do the same things physically that I did then, that I’ll have the same social connections and relationships I had at that time, and have the same list of things I want to do. Then, I look in the mirror at the sags and wrinkles, creak and crackle as I stand up after pushing off from the chair to get up, put on eyeglasses and hearing aids knowing I’m not 35 anymore.

For some things I’d like to be young again. For others, I embrace the ability to look back at certain events with a little wisdom born of faith, experience, and time. To see the guiding hand of God and His wonderful care in my life is essential. I may still be an adult in disguise, but I believe God knows that and continues to take care of me in my less-than-perfect-life. Even though I’m in disguise as an adult I know that I will always need God as my Father.

More quotes from around my desk next week.

Love, Patti

Enjoy reading the only Psalm Moses wrote, Psalm 90, From Everlasting to Everlasting!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day at our house in Tulsa this past week. I hope you all did, too! We had 13 for dinner here at our house. Thanksgiving worship was Wednesday evening at our church.

A halt in emails was called among the LWML Executive Committee from Wednesday noon to Monday morning. What a relief! I could walk by my office room without feeling guilty about not checking email. In fact, that was one of the things I was really thankful for! Email is wonderful in that it speeds up communication and cuts costs of postage. However, as it speeds up communication it also speeds up the expectation of response time, making it necessary to check all during the day! Hence the guilty feeling as you slink by the office door like someone is watching you!

Tuesday is Giving Tuesday. LWML is participating. This is our fourth year to participate. I know that LWML women are invested year round in giving for mission grants and operating costs of LWML. Mite Boxes are filled faithfully by men, women, and children in homes, offices, and churches. It is a privilege to pass along the blessings God has showered down on us with others in physical need or spiritual need. Two women have stepped up and offered to match funds from Giving Tuesday up to $20,000. This will help immensely as we near the end of our biennium March 31, 2019 and provide the mission funding that delegates promised at the Albuquerque convention.

I’ll be checking my email, happily this time, and our LWML Facebook page for updates! I hope you will read about the wonderful mission work being done by our grant recipients on our website or on our Facebook page this week as we participate in a national Giving Tuesday. Please pray for them as you read!

Thank you for all that you do!

Patti

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1Corinthians 15: 57-58).

LWML Working for you!

Engage, Encourage, Equip and Enjoy

Racing to the Finish!

Joy to the World

New Year Greetings from Pasadena!

Quotes from around my desk. Majesty

Quotes from around my desk. Peace

Quotes from around my desk. Helping those in need.

Quotes around my desk Birthday musings

Giving Tuesday

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