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Goals

I ran across a document titled “BOD” in a stack of papers as I was cleaning (rearranging) my desk and my office bedroom this week. It was some things I wanted to bring up at a BOD and it’s not dated. I think it was from January of 2018.

Here’s what I had under the heading, “My personal goals for the coming year”.

  • Continue to engage women in discussion of how to improve participation in LWML activities.
  • Encourage LWML women to use our excellent Bible studies and devotional resources.
  • Work towards the goals and objectives chosen in October of 2016.
  • Continue quality outreach to our seminaries.
  • Encourage our talented LWML women to do their best in making quality opportunities available to women in the Lutheran Church for mission service and awareness.
  • Continue to improve the image of LWML among church and outside ministries and auxiliaries.
  • Review our mission statement with an eye to updating it.
  • Do outreach to international LWML women’s groups in partner churches worldwide.
  • Increase LWML visibility at LCMS meetings and events.

It was an interesting document to run across. Where did 2018 go? Wow, it’s down to four months until I’m finished as president. I really wish I could have had time to make that outreach to other international women’s groups in our partner churches happen. I only got as far as LWML-Canada and the Lutheran Church of the Philippines Women’s League. Hopefully, someone will take that to heart and make my goal their own reality.

I hope you set some goals for 2019 as far as LWML goes. Maybe you will do a better job of journaling as you go along and look at the progress you are making without losing them in a pile of papers!

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (1 Peter 4: 10-11).

Patti

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Best Practices Update

Several of us attended Best Practices for Ministry in Phoenix, Arizona, Thursday through Sunday of this past week. For eight years, Christ Church Lutheran Lutheran Church and School in Phoenix has put on this gathering for people in the ministry of our church. It is to give encouragement, support, fellowship, and provide resources for these faithful workers. It’s to let them know they are not alone. It’s also to spur them on to spreading the Gospel, reaching the unchurched. I think I can answer for those women who were there with me that we came away encouraged and enthused!

LWML—Lutheran Women in Mission were chosen to present on two topics, “Resources on a Budget” about our Christian Life resources and “Money for Missions”, where we went over the submission of mission grants. This was to give help in concrete ways to ministries and churches and to encourage them as they build their outreach. I thank Linda Arnold, Jennifer Huecker, and Debbie Larson for doing the presentations with me. We received many “thank you’s” from grant recipients and got to tell about LWML to many attendees.

Sometimes we do feel alone in our ministry work in LWML, don’t we? It may be discouraging, especially as volunteers in a society where status is conferred often by job titles, pay grade, or celebrity. Don’t be discouraged if you feel overlooked. God knows what is in your heart. He can work through even the smallest things you do to bring about His will for the world. But don’t stop at the small things. Think big! Try something new in your group. Get with your Pastor or lay ministries head and partner with them on a new project to reach the unchurched in your area.

Unfortunately, we talked to many women who didn’t know what LWML was and what we do. They also did not know how to become involved. Would one of those women be from your church? Look around! If you need help or suggestions to build up your LWML, please, please, contact our Vice President of Organizational Resources, Debbie Larson, for suggestions and advice. She can be reached at depor@lwml.org.

Be encouraged and equipped as you engage with your congregations to spread the Gospel message that Jesus Christ is the Savior.

Patti

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New Year Greetings from Pasadena!

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

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Quotes from around my desk. Majesty

“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!

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Quotes from around my desk. Peace

Peace Note
Peace Note

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

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Quotes from around my desk. Helping those in need.

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

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Quotes around my desk Birthday musings

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!

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Long Thanksgiving Prayers

Give Thanks

I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. My son, David, wife Sarah, Jackson, Adelaide, and Charlotte will walk over to our house for dinner. My brother, Robert, wife, Marcia, from Springfield, Missouri, our niece, Heidi from Oklahoma City and nephew Kurt, from Chicago, will also be there.  My son, John, who many of you met in Albuquerque, will fly in from LA with his girlfriend, Rita. And my husband, Bill, will tell the same jokes and make the same remarks he always does at a big family gathering! What fun! We may actually get everyone together for a family Christmas photo! My Thanksgiving prayer is pretty long!

I’m also thankful for the opportunity to visit and hear from our mission grant recipients—current and past—who express their thankfulness to me for the support the LWML has given them in their mission outreach ministries. I wish you could hear each one. We have a page in the Mission section of our website called “Your Mite Offerings Have Made a Difference” where we carry updates, thank you letters, and photos from grants current and past. These recipients have long Thanksgiving prayers for you all who faithfully fill your Mite Boxes in order to help them spread the Word of God around the world.

I know you all have much to be thankful for. As we attend church this Thanksgiving we will thank God for all the material things we have been blessed with as well as the most wonderful thing of all, faith in Jesus Christ and the gift of everlasting life. We thank God for loving us and sending His only son to die on the cross in payment for our sins. We thank God for making us heirs of His heavenly home. It’s almost too much to include in a single prayer of thanksgiving. Just so much! Amazing love, amazing Grace, amazing God!

I’m wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and very long Thanksgiving prayers!

Patti

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! (Psalm 118:1)

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District Conventions

The year of district conventions is concluded. The final conventions were the LWML Florida-Georgia convention in Orlando and the LWML Southern Illinois convention in Centralia, Illinois. Forty districts held conventions this year with 40 different themes, 40 different Bible studies, and many different guest speakers, servant events, worship services, and elections of officers.

Patti and  FL-GA President Trish 

Much like the body of Christ is one but composed of different parts with different functions, we celebrate this reflection also in our LWML districts. Differences come with geographic location, population differences, historical settlement patterns, and emphases of LCMS districts. We bring these districts together in our national organization and benefit from the differing input we receive from all of them. Not only do we benefit from the combination of our Mite Box offerings for grants but also in the talent that is brought to our various committees, our production of Bible studies and devotions, and our work in the area of mission service and gospel outreach.

Taking figures from the reports that the Executive Committee Representatives to the district conventions turned in here is what I see.

Attendance at conventions was 9,517 people

Young Woman Representatives were a total of 312

District grants for 2018-2020 totaled $3,469,997.92

I hope you were able to attend your district convention, the time spent together is never wasted. There is something for everyone at a convention. That something is not the same for each person. Remember to show appreciation to those who worked on your convention. Support your officers and work to fund your mission grants over the next two years. It’s a great time to be in LWML! It’s a great time to Serve the Lord with Gladness!

Engage, Encourage, Equip and Enjoy!

Patti

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing (Psalm 100:1-2 KJV).


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SOS

Hurricane

LWML Carolinas District

Little did they know when they chose their district convention theme months ago how that theme would echo circumstances surrounding this past weekend’s weather events! President Carolyn Smith and LWML friends went ahead with their convention at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. I’d like to share a report submitted by LWML Parliamentarian, Barbara Volk, a member of the Carolinas district. We are so thankful for their convention taking place and the safety of all attendees. Thank you, Barbara, for this report:

The Lord was watching out for our Carolinas District LWML this weekend, so we were able to hold our convention even as Florence moved in. The LWML Carolinas District women were determined to hold their 66th convention at Lake Junaluska Christian Conference and Retreat Center in Western North Carolina on Sept. 14 and 15. 103 women and men (of the 116 preregistered) braved the storm and celebrated under the theme “SOS – Serving Our Savior.” Gifts from the Heart benefitted Haywood Pathway Center, which provides emergency services to the homeless, addiction recovery support, and crisis pregnancy assistance. Servant Activities were filling backpacks with school supplies for Orphan Grain Train and sending cards of encouragement to seminary students.

Because the rain and winds were moving into the area by afternoon, some of Saturday’s business and presentations were condensed, but attendees were still able to hear both parts of the keynote address by Dr. Gregory Seltz, Executive Director of the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty—“Called by God to BOAST of Him (1 Cor. 1:26-31)” and “The LCRL and You—Engaging the culture as God’s people for the sake of the Gospel.” Devotions and prayers were led by Senior Pastoral Counselor John Fair. Because the flights for LWML Representative Carol Von Soosten were cancelled, LWML Parliamentarian Barbara Volk introduced the video greetings from President Patti and provided an overview of LWML products and services.

Business included voting for officers, with Cheryl Wulfert elected district president for 2018-2022; selection of a mission goal of $67,000 and district mission grants for 2018-2020; invitation to the 2019 LWML convention in Mobile; and thanks to all who worked on the convention, particularly Donna Kleister, convention host committee chairman and Western Zone President.

I salute the LWML Carolinas District and their guests who braved the ire of their uninvited guest, Florence, to come together to talk about serving our Savior as we serve others through our work in LWML.

Love, Patti