Women reaching Women: Edifying, Encouraging, Equipping

May Greetings from CLB Women's Ministries!
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:8

NEWSFLASH!
We are praising the Lord, and thanking you all...the WMCLB budget was met for our year ending April 30, 2013!

REGISTER NOW for...
WMCLB annual Women's National Event
June 28-30, 2013,
Warm Beach Bible Camp, Washington
Friday: "Vision in Action" - We roll up our sleeves to work
Saturday: "Live the Vision" - our WM Event Day + a 5:00 pm Dinner together
Sunday: "Sharing the Vision" - Worship and sights of Seattle

Come for the weekend, or just Saturday!

New retreat slideshows below...

Bible Study & one-day retreat ideas here

Recommended Bible Study for 2012-2013:

Face-to-face with Priscilla and Aquila - Balancing Life and Ministry
Greetings to each of you, fellow servants of Jesus!
     The leadership team of WMCLB has presented two primary goals for our ministry in the local churches this year:  prayer and mentoring.  Naturally, they are closely connected, since learning about and practicing a life of prayer is an important part of mentoring new believers. We would like to see this training taking place in our American and Canadian congregations.

The resource we are suggesting is a Bible study by Janet Thompson, titled Face-to-face with Priscilla and Aquila - Balancing Life and Ministry.  Here are some details about the study which we are encouraging all local groups to use some time this year.  I also have written additional guidelines for leaders which you may receive by emailing me   .These address some issues of doctrine and practice that would be important for you.  I'd like to hear your feedback on the study if you use it!

-Ruth Vallevik
Director of Women's Ministries CLB

On tiptoe
by Sue Olson,
Pacific Region-North President
May 2013

A lot of anticipation has been going on in our Olson family this time of year.  When will grandson Luke be born in Tokyo? Will I be able to get a standby seat to get there in time? Will I make it in time to see the famous Tokyo Cherry Blossoms? In your part of the country you may be wondering if Spring will ever come.

Have you ever thought about how nature, all of God’s creation, is also waiting in great anticipation? Various versions of Romans 8:19 say that all creation is “anxiously longing; waiting eagerly; hopes for earnest expectation; eager expectation” ...but for what? For the sons of God to be revealed. Or, as one of my old favorite Folk Songs from the mid 70’s sings it, “All creation’s straining on tiptoe just to see, the sons of God come into their own.”

Can’t you just see it? I think the coming of Spring is one of God’s ways to help us imagine just what this is and will be like. All the sprouting of vegetation and blooming of flowers and blossoms that  once were decayed and had seemed as if dead through the long dark cold winter come back to life, come into their own, revealed once again as to who they were really meant to be, as God originally created them.

Yet, they continue to “groan, as in pain of childbirth.” (Rom. 8:22) Nature along with us, suffers from the effects of sin, its destruction and decay, and longs, just as we do for Spring, for us to come into our own. In other words, to be redeemed, renewed, delivered, restored through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and await in eager anticipation for His coming for us again when we will be totally made anew into the image that God originally created us to be, like Him.

Creation can’t wait for this to happen. It’s like the Japanese saying when someone comes back home after being gone a long time, “I’ve been waiting for you with a long neck.”  Feel the straining, the anticipation? Are you on your tiptoes yet? I am. I can’t wait. But while we do wait, let us also be encouraged to see God at work in and through us now, even as we await eagerly to fully “come into our own.” Don’t be disappointed if it’s taking longer than you had hoped. “God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, and coal into diamonds – using time and pressure. “ He’s working on, in and through you too.

Grandson Luke arrived a week early and I got that standby seat to fly on the same day to Japan. I missed Easter at home. The cherry blossoms were fluttering off the trees like snowflakes but what I wanted to see the most was alive and well and cuter than I ever imagined. I wonder if that’s how God already sees us too?  More beautiful than we could ever imagine.

Thank you Lord, for baby Luke, a wonderful reminder and a little glimpse of your power to create perfection…the way you intended us to be. Thank you that through your grace, the work and blood shed by your Son Jesus Christ we can be in a loving relationship with you now, and look forward “with a long neck” on tiptoe to when we become as you originally created us to be for all Creation to see and REJOICE!

Romans 8: 18-26 – Future Glory

We continue to add to our website by including some of our past devotionals -

Our Director's Schedule:

June 28-July 1: National WMCLB Event at Warm Beach, WA