It has (obviously) been some time since i last wrote, but i don’t feel too badly since i’ve only received two postings, neither of which were readable!  We’ve had a great year in women’s ministries here at the church. We started three new ministries this year, our first being a  Women’s Prayer Breakfast under the direction of Cindee Quan.  They meet once a month for breakfast, prayer and fellowship.  It has been a great opportunity for women to gather together and catch up and pray for one another.  Thanks, Cindee!  Our second new ministry, called Real Life Cafe is a ministry where we have experts come in to share thoughts with us on various topics.  Our first meeting hosted two panel experts on managing depression.  It was well attended and, i think, well received.  Thanks, Sue Mages and Women Together for your leadership in this area.  Our next meeting will be Monday, January 25, 2010 and our topic will be Nutrition and Lifestyle changes for Busy Women. 

Our third new ministry, under the direction of Mona Van der Tuig is a Hula Worship team.  They have performed at two different women’s events and we are looking to take the show on the road this spring with some community outreaches.  It has been a very moving experience for some of the women watching and performing in this wonderful ministry.  This ministry had its genesis at our annual Women’s Retreat this past spring where we learned about “Traveling Light” - letting go of the baggage that holds you back from deepening your walk with Christ.  The hula class was an elective class during the weekend and over 40 women attended the class.  We were all amazed at the warm reception this prospective ministry received, but obviously the Lord has plans for this ministry.  Thanks, Mona.  A new class will begin on Wednesday night, January 13, 2010 if you’re interested.

Our Women Together team has been busy this year as well.  Our annual women’s tea, “Teatime with God” was sold out last February.  We served over 700 sandwhiches, had a string quartet from Diamond Bar High School entertain us and a lovely evening shared among friends.  Our Easter luncheon, “The Resurrection Collection” fashion show was a resounding success!  We had a funky bridal show with bridesmaid dresses going back to before some of us were born!  It was a fun morning and Linda Merrill, our speaker, inspired us all with her moving story of God’s work in her life.  We’re planning a Resurrection Collection part two for the 2010 spring luncheon, so i hope you don’t miss out.

The Women’s Retreat mentioned above, is always one of my favorite times and this past year was a great blessing!  Our team has “got it down” organizationally and it was a wonderful weekend of blessing for all of us.  Our speaker, Pam Christian did a fabulous job of helping unpack our bags and lighten our load.  Several women have mentioned how that weekend was instrumental in helping them change direction and focus more securely on  Christ. That’s what it is all about!  Learning to walk more securely and learning to trust, even when we don’t know what lingers around the next bend in the road!

This past September, we kicked off our new year with “Laughter and Luau”.  The women together team cooked up some great hawaiian foods and one volunteer made real poi!  We had some great laughs, our Hula worship team inspired us and  Mona briefly told how she got involved in this ministry.

We just completed our Fall event, called Holiday Happenings.  While we usually do a beautiful fashion show at a local hotel, this year we decided, due to the economy, to try and stay closer to home and actually give women something to take with them.  Our thanks to Pastor Mark and the elders who allowed us to transform the sanctuary.  Our team designed a beautiful set, made stunning table centerpieces, fantastic table favors and worked hard to make this event a wonderful day for women.  We started off with a universal favorite - shopping at the Holiday Boutique and a continental breakfast on the patio, followed by a welcome time in the sanctuary.  We then sent women off to various gatherings to learn some helpful tips for the holidays.  We had simple holiday appetizers, table settings, card-making and a class on “Keeping Christ in Christmas” with something for everyone.  We had an extraordinary buffet luncheon with homemade chocolate cake!  This was followed by Danna Demetre, our speaker who shared about her struggle with anorexia and other life challenges. 

Also this year, our quilting group under the direction of Ann Turley met regularly for fellowship and sharing time.  If you’re interested in quilting, this is the group for you!

Before i close this (rather lengthy) update, i want to thank all of our WOW leaders who serve week after week in our Women’s Bible Study program.  We have six classes that meet on Wednesday mornings, an evening class for young women at a local optometry school, an evening class for single moms, and i’m sure i’m leaving something out!  All in all, our Bible Study team comprises of 22 leaders, two of whom are new to the team this year in their role as “prayer shepherds”. Their job is to cover every leader with prayer that God would enable these leaders to reach deep into the hearts and minds of the women they touch.

All in all, a great year here at the church!  Next time, i’ll catch you up on life in general - if anyone reads this, that is!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you as you celebrate the journey with family and friends.  What i want to leave you with, is a phrase that has settled deep into my own soul this past year.  May He use it in yours as well.  “Behold, I have loved you with an everlasting love.”  Jeremiah 31:3  May this truth seep deep into your soul!  It will transform your life.

Altogether, it has been a great year.  I’m very grateful to the wonderful women (and men) who helped make this year

With the annual Fashion Show only weeks away, I hope you’re thinkin’ about who you can invite.  Tickets are on sale now on a first buy-first seat basis.  This year we’ve invited Jaime Thietten, a 2007 Female Vocalist of the Year, to come and bring us some special music.  You can hear her at www.jtmusic.net.

Our speaker this year is Jan Coleman.  She is an amazing speaker and you will not want to miss her story.  You can learn more about her at jancoleman.com.  She is a gifted storyteller and does she have a story!  She has written lots of books, including her new one, Unshakable:Standing for God No Matter What.  I know hearing her story will touch you and your guests

And now a word about fashion - our women’s teams have been working hard to make this year’s fashion show another amazing event for the Efree Church!  This year’s theme, Celebrating Unity:Fashions From Around the World has been a great deal of fun for the teams to work on, but more than that, we believe this theme is an opportunity for you to invite neighbors and friends of other nationalities to come and be a part of the day.    

Don’t forget about the shopping available that day as well at our boutique.  If you attend our church, and would like to make some extra money by selling some of your homemade items, contact the church office for more information.

The date is Saturday, November 8, 2008 from 10-2 at Shilo Inn Hilltop, Grand Ballroom; tickets are $23 per person!  Plan on carpooling, if you can. I look forward to seeing you there!! 

August 11, 2008

Loss is something every human being deals with at some time or other in life – it can be part of the glue that brings us together or it can be the thing that pulls us apart and causes us to war with one another.  I remember my first “loss”.  I couldn’t have been more than four years old.  We lived in Pennsylvania and I was going to go trick-or-treating on Halloween.  I had a doll I was very fond of who went everywhere with me.  My mother urged me to leave the doll at home in case she should be lost.  Typical of what would later become part of my personality, I took her anyway.  During the walk up and down the dark streets, she was lost and I was bereft.

I, like so many others, have faced several periods of loss in my life and I am experiencing one now.  I have the urge to “blog” this loss with you because I think so many of us here at church are either in a series of loss different than mine, or maybe similar.  As one of the sandwhich generation, I have this last month, been dealing with issues related to soon losing my dad.  It has been a painful time for my family.

This first entry will be rather long and represents some of my journal entries in the last few weeks.  I will try to update it more regularly after this initial push.  I would so appreciate hearing your thoughts, suggestions and your own issues.  I will try to pray for you and hope you are moved by God’s grace to pray for our family as well. 

7/26/08

Yesterday I spent half a day with dad at the doctor’s office.  He fell a couple of days ago and has five cracked ribs and the beginnings of pneumonia on the left side.  The doctor gave him a shot of anti-biotics and sent him home.  I don’t know how many times Tami (my sister) and I have told him that if he doesn’t use his walker (he doesn’t), he will fall and hurt himself and end up with us not being able to take care of him any longer.  I have told him at least 100 times.

7/28/08

I went today to pick up dad for the day as Tami will be gone all day.  He seems pretty weak to me.  I gave him some prescribed Darvocet for pain but he is very restless and agitated today.  He gets up, then sits down.  He can hardly walk.  About 11:00 he said he wanted to go to the doctor or the hospital, that the pain was ‘pretty bad’.  For my dad, that says volumes.  He doesn’t like doctors, hates hospitals and would never request to go to one on his own!  Jonathan and I had to help him walk everywhere and then he couldn’t get up from the bathroom seat.  I took him in to see a Physicians Assistant and she did a pre-admit to the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, I did have a chance to talk with dad about spiritual things.  He said he’s not afraid to die and is ready.  He really did sound at peace but I told him he would probably rally and lived to see 100.  “I hope not,” was his reply.

Tami’s coping skills are pretty minimal right now and I’m not far behind.  You’re never really ready for this scenario.  It seems when someone comes to the end of life, loved ones are never ready – whether it’s quick and unexpected or slow and agonizing.

I feel engulfed in a sea of anger right now – perhaps it is coming from “loss”.  Loss of my dad, mentally for sure, perhaps physically, as well as other areas in my life.  In my reading through Deuteronomy, the verse that I read today helps: 4:9 “Acknowledge and take heart this day that the Lord God is in heaven above and on the earth below…”

7/29/08

I woke up this morning thinking about shipwreck – and that is how my life seems right now.  Shipwrecked on a shoal of troubles.  All my hard-won attempts at lifestyle changes in treadmilling (not for 2 weeks) and eating changes (I ate a WHOLE pastrami sandwhich yesterday – which I don’t think I’ve EVER done), have been sabotaged.

This is one of the seasons in life when you feel like crawling out of your own skin and trying someone else’s on for size – not that theirs in the long run would be much better.

I think yesterday’s earthquake is a metaphor of where I am in life right now – ‘pretty shaken up, a bit shattered with large pieces of my life being shaken from their moorings.’

Dad didn’t recognize us today – some of the drugs have increased his confusion and his mental status.  I never know what to expect from day to day when I go to visit. It’s like being someone’s puppet – being jerked around by the great unknown.  The enemy has obtained a foothold in my life and is attempting to separate me from a sense of knowing God’s presence is with me.  He will not win – I know God will never leave me.

7/31/08 4:20 a.m.

When someone you love is dying, there is within yourself almost a will to suffer – almost like your own mini-death.  There is a feeling of needing to suffer alongside – not sure whether that thought comes from guilt or something else.  Last night I was willing myself to feel my own physical aches and pains – a strange need.

I don’t want to write about the process of dad’s going downhill – it is painful – it is loss.  But there is still a spark in me that wants too get the good out of this – to perhaps help someone else walk the walk a bit taller – maybe for my own son who, God forbid, has to walk this walk for me or John some day.

First there is the guilt that somehow you could or should have done something to avoid the situation.  For me, it’s, ‘should I have taken dad to the doctor and asked about hospitalization?’  Would he have gone downhill this fast if I had tried to keep him home?

Then there is the guilt of betrayal – the feeling of not wanting dad to suffer – but not wanting me to suffer either – the guilt of hoping he won’t linger in the state he is now in – he doesn’t know us; he is uncomfortable, in pain, delusional, confused, combative, belligerent – not the dad I knew 4 days ago even.  I don’t want my dad to live on in this hell when I know his heaven awaits and will be so much better.

But I also feel guilty for not wanting a nursing home to be my new focus – demanding that I always be on the alert for dad, that my new life will revolve around being on guard to see that my dad is not abused.  To be brutally honest, I don’t want that inconvenience.  My life is already inconvenient and adding on another distasteful task to my already stressful life, does not sound agreeable.

There are also conflicting emotions – the guilt of feeling angry at dad for not preparing us for this – he was the dad!  He should have talked with us, helped us prepare for this day or done something more – especially after mom died.  Instead, he was in avoidance mode – he never wanted to deal with any of this and he never, never wanted a nursing home as an option.  He didn’t give us any alternatives.  However, on the way to the hospital Monday, he almost redeemed himself.  “I’m sorry to be putting you all in such a mess.”

Tami, Pam and I have to make horrible decisions in the midst of a fog of great pain and suffering.  That makes me angry.  Tami is dealing not only with loss of someone she’s lived with for a year, but also the financial devastation of having added a room on with no way to pay for it; Pam has long distance devastation – of being capable, but not reachable.  I have the horror of leading the troops in the midst of a sea of my own pain - of having to make reasoned decisions in the fog.  And Brett doesn’t even have a phone I can contact him at – his pain is also going to be monumental – he will lose not only his dad, but his home of 45 years.  We will have to sell.  None of us can afford to pay dad’s mortgage.

Then there is the reality of having to make major decisions in the midst of the gloom of suffering and pain – which nursing home? How will we pay for it?  Will dad be aware of where he is and will he cause more guilt by begging us to take him out?  Will we be able to get Medi-cal? Where are the papers we need? And always in the background of my mind, ‘What will I be leaving my son with? How will he cope as an only child?’

Some of the pain is for another day.  Today has enough.  Today I pray three things:

1)  What do I need to know today to make today’s decisions?

2)  What do I need to do today to fulfill today’s obligations?

3)  Who do I need to be today to be God’s woman in the midst?

I told Jonathan last night that I actually hoped dad would pass away – to put him and all of us out of further misery – but I also told him that was not our call to make – that God in his infinite wisdom might call us to the deeper walk – for some purpose we are not yet aware – dad may linger in this horrible state and that if he did, even though we can’t see it, God will use it for good.  He is trustworthy.

I was recently reading another Blog about Willow Creek whose leaders have recently come out with the findings that their “seeker friendly church” is producing shallow Christians. http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/10/willow_creek_re.html . It’s interesting, but my first thought was, “maybe I should look at what programs they have and compare them with ours so ours can be evaluated for shallowness! My second thought was that, God isn’t limited by what programs we do or don’t do - if we are listening to His voice and attempting to follow His guidance, even Willow Creek’s shallow programs could produce fruit in our environment. I think that is part of the problem with the “mega church” band-wagon. Everyone wants to be like them, yet I think God has given each church its own special DNA.

I was talking to one of the women who used to be on my leadership team, but who for other reasons, has recently moved on to a new church. When I invited her to the Fashion Show, I told her that, “Your family has left its stamp on this church and you are forever part of our DNA whether you worship here, there or anywhere else.” And so it is with any person who steps foot on our campus. I’m grateful to Pastor Mark for his insistence on meeting new people every week and for encouraging us to do the same. We can’t tell by looking who is going to ‘come, grow, go’ with us, but we can trust that as we reach out with God’s Hand, He will direct.

KL