EMBRACING WHOLENESS

 Saturday morning the  United Methodist Women, Clermont had a Mission Study on Embracing Wholeness - Your place in God's creation.

 Linda Welander (4th from the left) is the education and Interpretation mission Coordinator for UMW, Clermont. This is the team she worked with to put on the program. Left to right, Diane Wells, Janet Blume, Celeste Hicks, Linda, Barb Reed, and Dottie Mathias.

 Barb Reed put out a nice display of natural products to use to help the environment.

There were ideas to make kits to have in your car to give to others in need.

 Pam Anders worked at putting out all the food that was brought for light breakfast and desserts.

 Janet Blume getting the craft ready for everyone to do.

 A great idea to start your plants in cake cones and then you can put them right in the ground, cake cup and all.

 The tables looked lovely.

 The whole team together to celebrate 150 years of UMW. Left to right Cathy, Pam, Kim, Mavis, Linda, Janet, Diane, Barb, Celeste and Dottie.

 Mavis and Kim had everyone sign in and get a name tag.

 30 people attended the program.

 The program was at each place along with a package of seeds.

 Celeste lead the women in UMW purpose and read the days reading from the prayer calendar.

 Alma Manney from St. Luke's told us about a documentary event on Partners 4 Peace that will be held at their church in May.

 Elaine Cowles and Sharon Kowalski presented the Lord's Prayer in a very thoughtful skit.

 Janet Blume talked about The Sacred Creation.

 Linda Welander presented the Sacred Community.

 Janet Blume interrupted the program looking for Mission U which will  be held in Lakeland  July 11 to the 14th.

 Diane Wells talked about the Sacred Self.

 Look this song up on You tube, the words expressed today's program.

 Barb Reed talked about Convenantal Living. She used the book from the UMW reading list, Not Just a Pretty Face, to help us be more aware on some of the harm we are doing to our bodies from chemicals that are in lotions and makeup.

 Doing the lunch time half the group ate the lunch they had brought while the other half browsed the books and information table.

 And we worked on a craft, painting a flower pot.

 Some pots drying.

 After lunch and a fun search committee activity, Diane Wells ended her presentations with this reading.

Linda showed a movie about the Eden project. Several organizations are working together with the people in the areas where the forest has been stripped to replant trees.  $1.00 can replant 10 trees. An offering was taken to help with this project.

  We were then given the opportunity to make our own covenant.

The days activities ended with Celeste Hicks  highlighted the  origin and accomplishment of United Methodist Women over the 150 years. We do make a difference in the world.

CHECK PRESENTATION

Evelyn Rose and Barb Reed presented Denise Burry, director of Forward Paths and Sharon Wooten, vice president a check for $2500. Forward Paths was one of the agencies supported with money raised at the Spring luncheon and fashion show.

LIFEBOAT PROJECT

 South Lake Presbyterian Church hosted the People of Faith meeting on April 24,2019. Pastor Drew welcomed everyone.

 Ruby Allen sang His Eye is on the Sparrow.

 An interesting and informative program was presented.

 Jill Bolander Cohen founded Lifeboat Project. It helps survivors of sexual and/or forced-labor trafficking. The focus is mostly for those18 and older, both male and female.  Florida is the third highest state in the nation for trafficking and central Florida is the third highest area in the state. Jill was told that raising awareness without providing services was doing everyone an injustice, so she started the Lifeboat Project.
 School age children are often targeted. They have developed an educational gaming app for kids age 10 to 18, ACT (Awareness Combats Trafficking) to help recognize the dangers.

The woman speaking is Millie, a case manager and service coordinator. The Lifeboat Project provides emergency shelter, transitional housing, and individualized support services to ensure each survivor can move past their trauma to healthy, successful lives.
 On the left is Joanne who told  how she was trafficked when she and her mother came here from the Bahamas when she was 14. They worked for a woman cleaning apartments for over a year and were never paid and were threatened. When she started with Lifeboat Joanne didn't realize that this was trafficking. Because of Lifeboat she found a safe haven and is now in college on a full wavier and giving back to the community with volunteering and musical talents. 

WYCLIFFE FIELD TRIP

 Circle of Grace took a field trip to Wycliffe Discovery Center in Orlando on April 16th.

 A few women from other circles came along.

 The museum has a small admission, is open daily and there is a tour every hour.

 Each of these figure represent an actual person who helped with having the Bible translated into the language their people spoke.

 The ribbon that hung above the person had John 3:16 written in their language. There was a button on the information about each area that you pressed to hear the scripture read in that language.

 The women in the center does not look like the person who helped with the translation and there is no star on the globe to show the area she is from. It would be to dangerous for her if anyone ever knew who she was or what area has God'd word.

 The translations are done out in the field where the people live. There is still a lot of work to be done.

 A little history about Wycliffe.

 Wycliffe has been translating the Bible for over 75 years.

 Our tour guide told us about Wycliffe's founder, William Cameron Townsend.

Listening to the guide telling more about the Wycliffe and how we can help with prayers and donations.

 We saw several short videos in this theater and we watch a longer film about a couple who worked as translators at Papua New Guinea.

 The museum has  many interactive exhibits. Here you were able to type in your name and have it printed out in several languages. A great souvenir, even could have it laminated for a dollar.

Barb, Sharon and Karen had fun dressing up.
We had a nice lunch at their cafe and thanks to Lynn Anders for being the bus driver for the church van. We all enjoyed the trip and encourage others to go.

IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL

 East Central District (ECD) held a women's retreat on Saturday, April 6,2019, at  Warren W. Willis United Methodist Camp in Fruitland Park.

 The theme for the day was It is Well with My Soul. Peggy, Glenda and Sharon had appropriate shirts to wear for the occasion.

 26 women from First United Methodist Church, Clermont attended.

 Janet Blume, Education and Interpretation chair for ECD, helped with the  registration and giving everyone a name tag.

 About 100 women gathered for the meeting.

Anne Winn, ECD President, welcomed everyone and lead us in song, even though there was some technical difficulty getting the words on the screen.

 Pam Anders, ECD Social Action chair, shared readings from the prayer calendar.

 Lisa Oelschlatger, ECD Communication chair, gave a nice talk about resting and restoring our soul using examples and scriptures from the Bible.

 There were 6 very interesting workshops. On the back of our name tag were the four we were attending and the session we would go to each one.  A good pull pork and bean lunch was served by the camp.

 A Tai Chi instructor from  Plantations lead a workshop.

 What a nice place to be outside for this activity.

He lead the music this morning and then had a workshop on how music touches our spirit. We can learn many of the stories and scriptures from songs that are sung.  The background of how some hymns were written was shared.  Many of them are poems and he suggested that you think about looking at what you write and see if music might be added to it for a song.  " It is Well With My Soul" was written by Horatio Spafford after losing all he owned in the Chicago fires, and shortly after his  four daughters drowned at sea when their ship sunk on the way to Europe. After the news,Horatio sailed to join his wife, and as his ship approached the area where the ship had sunk he penned the hymn.

Another workshop was Praying the Psalms. The instructor talked about spending more time in prayer and what we gain from praying.  We read Psalms 25 from different translations of the Bible, wrote down words that stood out to us, and then wrote our own prayer following that Psalms format.

Sandy shared the prayer she wrote.

One workshop was a mission project. Cathy and Ann cut plastic bags into strips about 2 inches wide. Each strip formed a loop.

Andrea tied the loops together to make a ball of plarn ( plastic yarn).

The plarn was then used to crochet a mat that when finished would measure 4 feet by 6 feet. The mat was to be used by someone who is  homeless to sit and sleep on to protect them from the wet ground. It takes a lot of bags, a lot of time and a lot of work to make a mat.

Joyce and Diane took some time to catch up with a woman from another church. It was a very  enjoyable day of fellowship, workshops, and relaxation.

150 YEARS

 Several of the Circles celebrated the 150 years of United Methodist Women.

An organization we all can be proud to be a part of, so wear your pin and tell others about it.