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Looking Ahead Toward Convention

We have a convention every two years as prescribed in our LWML Bylaws. We meet to conduct business by our delegates who represent our membership from our 40 districts. Over the years it has grown into much more than that. We now enjoy servant events, tours around the convention city area, entertainment, mission speakers, worship services, and exhibits. You can learn a lot at convention.

This June 20-23 in Mobile, Alabama we are going to have a couple special recognition opportunities. We need your help getting the word out. LWML would like to honor our overseas missionaries, those currently serving and those who have served in the past, and give them an opportunity to visit with old friends and be recognized for their service. A Friday night reception will be held for overseas missionaries. There will be a table in the registration area for them to sign up for the reception and to receive a special recognition ribbon for their name badge so that they can be recognized by convention goers.

The other special group we would like to recognize is our LWML women active duty and veteran military. As I traveled to different district conventions I found we had quite a number of LWML women who had served in the military or were currently serving. We’d like to hear from them and are asking them to check in at a special table near the registration area at convention and receive a special ribbon for their convention badge.

We need your help to spread the word that we are looking for these people attending the convention and that we have special sign up tables for them to find when they register. Thanks for your help!

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (Hebrews 10:24).

Love, Patti

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LWML Working for you!

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

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Engage, Encourage, Equip and Enjoy

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

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Racing to the Finish!

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

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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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Giving Tuesday

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).

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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)

Lutheran Women in Mission, Missions for God

Follow the Leader

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