A New Ministry At Our Church

It has been my desire for a while to start a ladies ministry at our church. Now that Juan, Nick, and Norma are here it is a little more doable for me. My desire is to have a ladies time one Sunday night a month. Now that we have helpers I have someone to cover the kids' class that night. It is impossible to have an adult service with kids in it, they are so disruptive. My kids are naughty enough and I am really working with them to teach them why we are in church and how not to distract from our worship time. Most of the other kids are just allowed to roam free, so you can imagine the ruckus. A separate kids time is a must! Plus I don't want anyone coming a single service no matter what age they are and leaving without something to help them in their walk with God. 

Since Becca was coming on this team, I asked her to kick off this ministry by hosting our first ladies meeting. I want this time to be super special, so I am planning on included either a cooking class, craft time, or special activity with each of our Bible studies. (Many of my ladies can't read, so a tactile activity really helps to drive a topic home.) Jimmy was really sweet and moved the regular service outside so that we could have our ladies time indoors. 

I had been trying to build up excitement during the weeks leading up to our meeting. I thought I had plenty of place settings, but it turns out I really underestimated how many of our ladies would come. I can't think of any of them who missed it. We were at 100% attendance in the ladies department that night! I am so thankful that they were so receptive! Becca had chosen a recipe to go along with her lesson, so we had it all set up to teach the ladies how to make pancakes.

We all met together first on the patio for our worship time.

{Pray for S! She is one of my favorites and still hasn't put her faith in Christ!}

 Jimmy let us have it inside mainly so that I could close/lock all the doors and not have any distractions. Outside I would have had children and men all gathered around, imposing on our girl talk. You have to be proactive when it comes to chaos here. Before we got started I kicked out every single person who was not a female 13 and up OR being nursed. My Mama Brava face came out. This took some time, since I had to personally escort each person out. No one cares about rules, but I wasn't having it this time, because with each person that I made leave, it made each person who remained in the room feel even more special. 

I translated for Becca, so I didn't get any photos of her lesson, but she was sweet to take these photos during our cooking time. 

It didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped, like my pan was too large for the hot plate that I borrowed even though that hot plate was the fanciest one I have ever seen. Then I burned up the extension cord. We will get a little gas stove top in there for next time. Most of these ladies don't have an oven, so I doubt I would ever do something with one. I was kind of freaking out at one point because everything wasn't going perfectly, but then I looked up and saw all of their faces. They didn't care how long it was taking to cook the pancakes, they were having a blast. I had prepared all kinds of toppings for their pancakes like fruit, whip cream and honey and I think the toppings were all gone before we ever served the silly pancakes! Fruit... those ladies love fruit! 

Anyway the goal was to build a sense of community and a desire to identify yourself as a Christian. I feel like we were successful in that. I hope this is the beginning of some strong Christian friendships where we can all encourage and pray for one another as we grow in our walk with God.  

Please pray for this ministry of our church. I cannot wait for our next ladies time!