Lutheran Women in Mission

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).

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)

This past week LWML held a leadership event in St. Louis. This event was titled, “Follow the Leader”, and included 180 LWML women and junior pastoral counselors from the forty districts. LWML committee members conducted sessions covering various aspects of LWML. Guest speakers contributed, as well. I was very encouraged by the interest shown by the attendees and by the dedication of so many to serving the Lord and working in LWML.

Preparations for the event started over a year ago and subjects were chosen after a survey was conducted with district presidents asking what they wanted to learn and hear about. In response, the planning committee under the direction of VP of Organizational Resources, Debbie Larson, chose carefully the content of the sessions and the speakers.

It was a fun and informative few days spent together. Now the attendees will bring the knowledge acquired back to their districts. If you weren’t in St. Louis you will get the opportunity to learn and experience the material presented closer to home in your district and zone.

It’s a great time to be serving in LWML! It’s a great time to follow our leader, Jesus Christ!

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:9).

Patti

This is a big week for LWML! We are having our Assembly of Leaders (AOL), this year, titled “Follow the Leader”. As always, we will begin with Bible study centered around the Scripture verse, What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me — practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:9). Bible studies will be led by our counselors, Rev. Robert Mundahl and Rev. Mitchel Schuessler.

Thirty-nine of our forty district presidents will be attending. New, this year, will be the newly elected junior counselors from the districts attending with their districts. Each district was encouraged to invite two other women to attend. Following the 3-day event, they will return to their districts and hold district and zone events to share information and ideas that they shared here in St. Louis.

Speakers, interest sessions, convention information, communication ideas, and other things used to strengthen their districts will be presented. I hope all of you will be able to attend a presentation they will do in your district.

Please remember them in your prayers this week for safe travel, good health, and a valuable learning time with everyone at this event.

In LWML, we serve the Lord, our Leader, with Gladness!

God’s peace be with you all!

Patti

To be an LWML Pastoral Counselor is huge. The job includes doctrinal review of everything, weeknight and weekday meetings either in person or via computer. You have to juggle family time, congregation time, and LWML time. You can be asked to be away from home at least 25 days per biennium. Your counseling time may include Executive Committee and Board members, district members, office staff, or other counselors. You review legal issues, employment questions, sit on financial committees, and plan and write various services, dedications, and convention worship. Necessary qualities include patience, a sense of humor, and the ability to be silly at times in sketches and “purplemercials”. In other words, we expect a lot out of our counselors!

You have two outstanding counselors elected by your delegates at conventions in Des Moines and Albuquerque. I hope you have a chance to meet them if you haven’t already.

Elected in Des Moines, 2015, our senior counselor, Rev. Robert Mundahl, is senior pastor of Peace Lutheran in Faribault, Minnesota, in the Minnesota South District. He attended Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne and also has a B.S. in K-12 Education/Philosophy from the University of Minnesota. (Peace has a school, 3 years-8). He served as an LWML District Counselor in two districts, Missouri and Minnesota South. He and his wife of 43 years, Peg, have 2 children and 2 grandchildren. His hobbies include camping, photography, golf and hiking and his golden retriever, Glacier, frequently accompanies him. His favorite sports include golf and watching NCAA wrestling. He enjoys all aspects of being a pastor but says if he had to do a different job it would be a school teacher/coach.

Our junior counselor, Rev. Mitchel Schuessler, is pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Troy, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois District. He received his Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and his B.A. from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. He served nine years in prison ministry. St. Paul’s also has a preschool. He and his wife of 34 years, Penny, have two married children. As hobbies he enjoys train watching and model railroading and reading. They have quite a menagerie at their house: Golden retriever, Zeb; chocolate lab, Wrigley; guinea pig, Oreo; parakeet, Rizzo; 2 water turtles, Houdini and Titan. His favorite sport to watch is baseball and if he wasn’t a pastor he would like to be a photographer. He enjoys leading worship and preaching and especially enjoys leading Bible studies.

Because of the heavy workload of reviewing manuscripts, articles and the review of the new history book that is currently being written, we asked Rev. Kenton Wendorf of Neenah, Wisconsin to come aboard as a special appointed counselor for doctrinal review. This has been a wonderful addition and has helped our elected counselors immensely. Many of you know Rev. Wendorf as LWML Past President, Jan Wendorf’s husband of 40 years and co-author of LWML Sunday materials in 2010. They have 11 grandchildren and, surprise, one of his hobbies is playing with the grandchildren! Also enjoys golf, playing the piano and watching the Brewers, and Indian’s play baseball and the Ohio State and Wisconsin play football. If he wasn’t a pastor he would enjoy working in the business sector, possibly in the nonprofit sector.

Our counselors are very special to us. I hope you will find a way to express your appreciation this month to your counselors—zone, district, or national—as they serve the Lord with gladness alongside you!

Patti

For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom from the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints (Proverbs 2:6-8).

2017–2019 Mission Grant 14 — $100,000

LBW — Lutheran Braille Workers Grant #14

LBW’s ministry lovingly reaches out to people who are visually impaired to create a connection to the Word of God and His church. Lutheran Braille Workers, Inc. (LBW) is celebrating their 75thAnniversary on October 20, 2018 at their headquarters in Yucaipa, California. I had the pleasure of serving on their Board of Directors during the two years between being LWML VP of Christian Life and LWML President. LWML has been honored to be one of the keynote speakers at this anniversary celebration. LWML has long been supportive of LBW through mission grants. Many of us serve in Braille work centers across the United States and many of your LWML districts also support LBW with grants.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to present their grant check of $100,000 from our mite offerings when I go out there for the celebration? At this point, we only have half of that amount available. When you look at our mite offerings (www.lwml.org/mites-received) you will see just how far behind we are with them. Please pray about our mites. Then, I strongly urge you, individually and collectively, to do something specifically about it. What will you and your LWML group do now to help pay all of the grants selected at the Albuquerque convention, including this one for LBW?

Remember this grant in prayer: Lutheran Braille Workers (LBW) has been providing God’s Word to the visually impaired since 1943, utilizing the New International Version of the Bible for the past 25 years. With the use of the English Standard Version (ESV) by the LCMS, LBW desires to offer people with visual disability the opportunity to worship and study with the same translation of the Bible as sighted people of the Church. These funds will assist in the cost of the production of the zinc plates for each Braille Work Center along with producing the ESV Bible in large print.

Jesus had a special place in His heart for the marginalized of society and so can we. Our LWML family reaches out to the physically and the spiritually blind as part of our mission. With the help of the Holy Spirit we should strive to do the best we can in both areas!

And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in pathsthat they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them(Isaiah 42:16).

Patti

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.

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).

Quotes from around my desk. Peace

Quotes from around my desk. Helping those in need.

Quotes around my desk Birthday musings

Giving Tuesday

Long Thanksgiving Prayers

Follow the Leader

This week in LWML!

Pastoral Counselor Appreciation

Laborers of Love-Lutheran Braille Workers

District Conventions

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