Headlines for January 2003

JANUARY 2003
Vol. 2 No.1

HEADLINES

Women's Ministries Goes on the Road

Evangelistic Reaping in Tanuku

Focus on the News

KEEPERS PAGE — Leadership

Editorial

VIEW ORIGINAL LAYOUT OF THE NEWSLETTER USING ACROBAT.PDF

ABOUT WM NEWSLETTER

News from the World of Women's Ministries is published monthly by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Department of Women's Ministries for the purpose of communicating news and information about Women's Ministries.

Director: Ardis Stenbakken

Associate Director & Editor: Heather-Dawn Small

Asst. Editor & Layout: Iris Stovall

You may contact the editor by writing:

General Conference Department of Women's Ministries
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904-6600
United States of America

Phone: (301) 680-6608
Fax: (301) 680-6600
Email: womensministries@
gc.adventist.org

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Women's Ministries Goes On the Road

The WM roadshow team with a woman whose granddaughter came and now wants to become an Adventist and join WM.

Exciting things are happening in the South Pacific division. Joy Butler, WM director for that division, took five women with her on a road trip to South New Zealand. They called their trip a traveling road show and had a banner with the theme "A Time for Hope" in WM colors and the Adventist Church logo on the bottom.

The women traveled in a van which was packed to the roof with luggage and equipment.

Programs were held at five different churches where they preached, taught, did chalk art, and prayed with many people. Contacts made were then passed on to the pastors and WM leaders. Many non- Adventists attended every service they held. At Dunedin five churches came together for a regional day. Special prayer was offered for the pastors and their families.

The trip raised an awareness of WM and what it is and resulted in many women wanting to join WM and some to join the church. Others committed to pray for their church, for WM, and to start prayer ministries in their churches.

"Personally, the whole trip confirmed and strengthened my faith in God and in the power of prayer. We hope to repeat such a program in other conferences. It strengthens the whole ministry and creates a much bigger impact," Butler said.

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Evangelistic Reaping in Tanuku

In January of 2002 Ardis Stenbakken and Nancy Van Pelt conducted evangelistic reaping meetings in Tanuku, India. Ten new church groups were started.

"I always worry about what is going to happen to the people when we leave," states Stenbakken. For this reason, Women's Ministries began a campaign to raise money for church buildings in the ten villages. Stenbakken reports that it is very important for the people to have a church and pastoral support to remain faithful Adventists. So far WM has raised money for three to four buildings, one paid for by the Van Pelt family.

In November, Dorothy Watts visited the villages of Tanuku to see how the groups were doing. She reports that there have been an additional 132 baptisms, bringing the total for the meetings to 1251. The foundation stones for two churches were laid during her visit and they finalized the purchase of land for three more. Watts reports that the people are very excited now about having church buildings and are meeting each Sabbath faithfully.

The Southern Asia Division has put three lay Bible workers in the Tanuku villages and another is funded by the Quiet Hour.

"Someday there will be plaques saying that Women's Ministries started these congregations and built these churches. God is good," says Stenbakken. Now the hope is to be able to build churches for the remaining congregations because if they have buildings the congregations will continue to grow.

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Focus On The News

Literacy

Southern Asia Division (SUD) -On May 1 this year an Adult Literacy program was begun in the village of Govindpur, India, where the majority of the villagers are Hindus. For the first 15 days only five to eight students attended. They learned how to read and write in Oriya and received information on cleanliness, saving money, taking care of children, cooking, and mending clothes. After this the attendance increased to 25 to 30 people each day.

Anandpur near Mohana in Gajapati district is one of the Adult Literacy Centres. The members are very enthusiastic to learn. They come from Baptist church background. The school is picking up steadily.

Some things happened unexpectedly. A zonal educational officer (Mandal) visited that area and observed the interest of the people in learning. He felt sorry that the government had not taken any initiative so far to start a school in the village. A few days later, to the surprise of the villagers, the Mandal officer himself came and inaugurated an elementary school for the children. Praise God!

South Pacific Division (SPD) - Bill and Carole Ferch-Johnson, working with ADRA, established literacy programs in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Literacy schools were established as a direct result of WM and ADRA working together. The Johnsons have also begun a program for the Australian Aborigines in the remote reaches of Western Australia.

Women and Health Evangelism

Southern Asia-Pacific Division (SSD) - Health Evangelism programs are on the increase in Bangladesh. From August 20 - 24 the South Bangladesh Mission called for Hepzibah Kore, WM director for SUD, to assist with a program in Mujibnagar village. Kore worked with Dr. Linton Roy and was able to distribute 84,000 takas ($1,500US) worth of medicines to the poor and needy in that village. This was followed up by two evangelism programs in this village and in the village of Bollovpur. There are no SDA churches in these villages so meetings were held in homes. At the end of the meetings 7 people were baptized.

October 22 - 26 Kore held an Health Evangelism program in Godaipur village where most of the people are Hindu. Five lay women had done field work for these meetings. Fifty of the 90 souls baptized were a result of their hard work.

To date eight Health Evangelism Programs have been conducted in eight villages with 220 baptisms.

Retreats and Passionate Leadership

North American Division (NAD) -New Orleans East church recently celebrated the "Seasons of a Woman" with guest speaker Wanda Davis, chaplain at Florida Hospital. In her talk "It's All About Jesus" Davis shared from Isaiah 53 and encouraged everyone to lay down their problems, worries and concerns.

Over 200 women attended the 2002 Oklahoma Conference women's retreat September 13-15 at Wewoka Woods Adventist Center. Their theme was "Women of Worth" and various aspects of the weekend were designed to help each woman realize her personal work. Tamyra Horst, Pennsylvania Conference WM director and author of several books was the featured speaker. She exhorted the women to look to Jesus for their worth and find contentedness in Him.

More than 150 women listened to Kay Rizzo as she spoke on the subject of Raggedy Anne in a Barbie Doll World during the Carolina Conference WM retreat held September 27-29. It was a weekend where Jesus was uplifted, prayerful times were spent, new friendships formed, and the women went home spiritually revived.

Leadership Training - The Passionate Leader training program premiered in Texas on August 24. Mary Maxson, WM director for the division, saw a need for leadership training for women in NAD and created the program. The one day program includes seminars such as Christian Leadership, Public Speaking, Mentoring, and Discipling.

"The Passionate Leader will go to every Union in North America," say Maxson with enthusiastic determination. "And every woman can be part of it."

News Flash!

The General Conference Women's Ministries Department has given a major Christmas present to each of the divisions in 2002.

Evangelistic meetings are available on DVD, even available in a number of languages. This allows any lay person, with or without special training, to do evangelistic programs. Many other programs for training are also available.

To help equip women, each division has been given a DVD/CD player and a video projector. The DVD player is a Sampo 612 weighing only 6.39 lbs. (2.9 kg); it has PAL and NTSC playback and is MP3 compatible. The video projector, a Luxeon L713V is a SVGA Digital and LCD projector weighing 7.5 lbs (3.27 kg); it has a carrying case.

Now the department needs help in getting these projectors to the divisions. If you know anyone traveling to these divisions who would be willing to carry them, thus saving on shipping and customs, please let us know. And if your WM organization would like to use one of these, please work through your division Women's Ministries director.

Tanzania Women's Memorial Fund
Goal: $50,000
Received: $7,360

International Women's
Day of Prayer is
March 1, 2003

"First Person Singular," the program packet for this special day, was written by Celeste perrino Walker. The packet is available on our website, through your WM Division director, or from GCWM for $2.50, plus shipping and handling.

Women are relationship oriented. Christ was relational. He said, "Come be with me."

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KEEPERS PAGE
Just for You! – Leadership

Once again we are giving you a preview of one of the Leadership Certification Seminars titled "Principles of Effective Leadership." There are 18 seminars in Level 1 and they can all be ordered from GCWM. For certification, you must contact your WM division director. Following this article you will find a price list.

Team-Building Principles *

Choose a gifted and committed leader.

Choose a group of women "whose hearts God has touched" (1Sam 10:26). You need women through whom the Holy Spirit can easily flow, women who are committed to work diligently to maintain their personal relationship with Christ.

Choose women willing to be united under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
If Christ is the center of all things, everything else will fall into its proper place (Col. 1:17). This will allow the group to avoid confusion, distrust and disunity.

Have a very clear focus that is understood by each team member. This will prevent Satan from being able to distract you from the direction of your ministry.

Choose team members who are gifted in the areas you need.

Establish early on the expectation that each team member will automatically keep the leader informed and communicate with other team members as appropriate.

Provide on-going learning opportunities.

Team members must show respect for each other and the leader. It is also important that the team members respect each other enough to confront in love. Wise confrontation is always a growth process for everyone on the team. Avoiding healthy confrontation will begin to build walls and issues that will eat away at the team.

Encourage risk taking! This promotes growth of the individual and team and it will allow for new growth toward your goals that otherwise would never be accomplished. In order for team members to feel safe at taking risks you need to consistently relate to them in a way to demonstrate that you value their individual dignity. Never leave your team members in isolation—don't let them wonder if you care about them or the progress they are making on their tasks—be in communication with them.

Recognize that failures will happen. Determine now to see failures as a refining process, not as a final outcome. Handle failures as a team by acknowledging the learning curve and brainstorming on what steps or precautions will be taken because of them. Do not waste energy on placing blame and avoid whining about mistakes at all costs! Failure represents a lesson that may facilitate a better future performance by the team.

Remain flexible! Things will not go just as you planned; do not lock yourselves into a mentality of "it has to be just like this or it won't work." Realize that you'll have to make adjustments and reconsider your plans all along the way.

Delegate! Hand out responsibilities according to the gifts of your team members, and their level of capability and responsibility and then let them carry out their duties according to their personal creativity and individuality. When possible, give a person tasks that are beyond their previous experience; this will allow them to grow.

Model and expect sincerity (truthfulness), transparency (what is my motive) and vulnerability (I'll let you know about my weakness or concern).

Follow the biblical principle of going directly to a team member that you are in conflict with. Between the two of you try to reach resolution. If you are not able to find resolution, include a team member as a neutral party—choose a team member that you both feel comfortable with. If you cannot agree on a team member, the team leader should be consulted. If the team leader is involved in the conflict and the two are not reaching consensus then involve the team in problem solving, not allowing "personal" agenda to take center stage.

Each team member is a leader in training. Though each person will not actually go on to be "the" leader, it is important for the sake of the mission that someone be prepared to step in as leader should something happen to the current leader. The on going learning process will benefit the team as a whole.

Promote a team mentality —"We" is better than "me". Delegate, empower, push responsible decision-making. Let the team be your idea source. Whether you lead or follow - communicate!

Remove team members who are not participating in the "team process". First gently confront the person and re-establish expectations and let her know that you will meet with her again after a period of time to evaluate progress. If she is not willing to cooperate she needs to be removed from the team or the health of the team will be in jeopardy.

Stay on goal. While relationships are vital to accomplishing a team's goals they are not, however, the ultimate goal. Remember you are on mission for God and He wants to complete His task through you.

*Barna, pp 221-231

Leadership Certification Seminars are available through GCWM for US$7.00 each seminar, for $120 for Level 1,
or for $39.95 for a CD (Level 1)

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