"If there were twenty women where now there is one, who would make this holy mission their cherished work, we should see many more converted to the truth" (Review and Herald, Jan. 2, 1879, "Christian Service," p. 28).

Whether church women are at home or in the marketplace, many are extending their hands to unchurched women.

One of our readers recently asked us, "What are some project ideas or mission tasks for taking women's ministry out of the church and into the community?" This is a great question, and we prepared ten outreach ministry cards to help our women to respond God’s call and go into the world.

Each Touch a Heart, Tell the World ministry card includes steps to get started and activity suggestions for one of these ministries: Intercessory Prayer, Plant a Seed, Friendship Evangelism, Small Group, Homes of Hope and Healing, Visitation, Prison, Discipleship, Bible and Baptism, Community Outreach.

Download here, Ten Ministry Outreach cards

View video here, God Calls 12 Million Adventist Women to rise and Touch a Heart, Tell the World

2015 GC Session Women's Meetings

Join us for Women's Meetings, July 6-9, 2015, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center Grand Ballroom C, 3rd floor, 200 East Market Street, San Antonio, Texas 78203.

Morning meetings, Monday-Thursday, 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM. Speakers: Dr. Ella Simmons, Raquel Arrais, Janet Page, Heather-Dawn Small.

Women's meetings with seminar, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM. Speakers: Dr. Arlene Taylor, Dr. Abner and Maila Dizon.

Theme is "Arise and Shine, Jesus is Coming!" Music by Sandra Entermann.

All women of all ages are invited to attend these meetings where we will worship together as daughters of God from every corner of the world.

2015 GC Session general information here.

Adventist Women's Bible

The first Adventist Women's Bible, co-produced by Safeliz Publishing (of Spain) and GC Women's Ministries, features full color portraits with biographies of thirty biblical women, an Adventist Bible Study series, colorful prophecy charts, and a list of the 28 Fundamentals of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

View this video to peak inside the Bible, click here and scroll down to Women's Bible. Order Bible online, Adventist Book Center.

100 Days of Prayer, March 25-July 11

You are invited to pray for the world church during the 100 Days of Prayer beginning March 25 and ending July 11, the final day of 2015 GC Session.

• Look around and learn as much as you can while at the GC Session.
• Attend the business meetings. If you don't understand what is happening, ask someone.
• Learn Parliamentary Procedure so you can better understand how the business works. Get a copy of the General Conference Rules of Order from Secretariat in your Conference, Union, or Division.
• Visit the booths to find out where you would like to develop a ministry if you don't have one already. Most have booklets and information.
• When you get home, get involved. If you can, serve on the church board or the Women's Ministries committee.
• Take the Women's Ministries Leadership Certification courses and become certified.
• When your church chooses officers, be sure that women are involved.
• When your church chooses delegates to a constituency meeting, serve if you can.
• Pray for and support women who are already in leadership.

By Ardis Stenbakken, Former GC WM Director

Nurture

Southern Asia-Pacific Division (SSD)

[Malyasia] Teen girls came together in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 2-3, 2014 for a Women's Ministries program called 1319G (girls aged 13-19). In addition to nurturing the girls' spiritual experience, leaders also taught them to access the digital world with seminars about Safely Using the Web, Facebook, and Apps; and for designing art work with MicroSoft Word to create a poster or flyer. The Mission office assigned computers to the teenagers who later visited the National Palace Royal Museum.

Empower

East-Central Africa Division (ECD)

[Tanzania] The Adventist Women’s Vocational Training Center in Nyanza, Tanzania is dedicated to the memory of our sisters who died eight years ago in a train accident while traveling home from ECD Women's Ministries Division Congress in 2007. Tanzania Union Women’s Ministries teaches classes in sewing, computer skills, English, and many other subjects at the center.

Heather-Dawn Small, GC Women's Ministries director, visited the center while attending ECD's Mission Extravangansa Celebration and presenting Women's Ministries training and certification seminars from Thinking Well, Living Well. 

Empower

Trans-European Division (TED)

[Latvia] About 75 women from Latvia and Estonia gathered in Riga, Latvia for Leadership Certification Level 1 seminars conducted by Clair Sanches, TED Women's Ministries director, and Marite Lipska, Latvian Conference Women's Ministries director.

Outreach

Inter-American Division (IAD)

[Panama and Nicarauga] Last year 7,000 women earned certification in evangelism with Women's Ministries Evangelism Manual, Outreach is for Everyone in training conducted by Women's Ministries of South Central American Union Conference.

These eager students implemented evangelism theory at the end of their training by holding evangelistic meetings throughout Panama and Nicaruaga, November 3-8, 2014.

As a result of women's outreach, thousands gave their lives to Christ, including 1,358 baptisms in Managua, Nicarauga and 1,900 in Panama City.

enditnow™

[Rwanda] The GC Women's Ministries initiative enditnow recognizes April 7, named by the United Nations, as the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Rwanda Genocide. This day commemorates the deaths of 800,000 people who were murdered during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, central Africa.

Adventist News Network, Adventists in Rwanda 2015; Adventists in Rwanda 2012; Women in Rwanda 2013. WM Mosaic newsletter, ECD WM Division Congress in Rwanda 2013.

Breaking the Silence Race Brings People to Christ

[Brazil] The population of Boa Vista, Roraima, welcomed the second race to raise awareness for enditnow - Adventists Say No to Violence against Women and Children. Nearly 250 little ones participated in a march exclusively for children in the morning, and nearly 1,000 adults ran in the afternoon.

The baptism of two professional athletes became the high point of the race day's event. Sportsmen Idejarlisson Moraes and Ronildo da Silva learned about the Seventh-day Adventist Church through the race held last year.

Thousands Run against Child Abuse

[Brazil] The issue of violence against children and teenagers was clearly noticed in the city of Manuas, Amazonas when Women’s Ministries organized a race, “Run against Child Abuse.” The event attracted 4,000 runners and more than 500 children participated at the same time in the “Kids Run.”

Analu Zhan, WM director for the Northwest region of the country said, "The runner’s race was a way to provide greater visibility for enditnow."

“By taking this stand," said Williane Marroni, South American Division WM director, "we are showing it is possible to fight it and prevent it, and this needs to start inside every home.”

Preventative Tips for Positive Mental Health

• Making time to do the things we enjoy.
• Taking moderate physical exercise.
• Cutting down on coffee, alcohol, nicotine and other addictive substance.
• Celebrating the things we like about ourselves.
• Keeping things in perspective.
• Developing and sustaining friendships.
• Listening to and respecting other people, even if we disagree.
• Asking for help if we feel distressed or upset.
• Listening to others who feel distressed or upset.
• Taking care of ourselves as well as we do others.

Positive Mental Well Being

Valuable health information encourages a lifestyle that will promote health of body, mind and spirit. Positive mental wellbeing includes:

• A positive view of self: self-awareness, self-esteem, and self- acceptance.
• Personal growth and development: developing talents and abilities to their full potential.
• Autonomy: being capable of independent action.
• Accurate view of reality: not distorting the world in any way.
• Positive friendships: the ability to build relationships of many varieties.
• Environmental mastery: meeting the requirements of the many different situations encountered in everyday life.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

“The condition of the mind affects the health of the physical system. If the mind is free and happy, from a consciousness of rightdoing and a sense of satisfaction in causing happiness to others, it creates a cheerfulness that will react upon the whole system, causing a freer circulation of the blood and a toning up of the entire body. The blessing of God is a healing power, and those who are abundant in benefiting others will realize that wondrous blessing in both heart and life” (Ellen G. White, Counsels for the Church, p. 216).

Source: Thinking Well, Living Well seminar packet, available for purchase through GC Women's Ministries for $10 each. For more information, call 1 (301) 680-6636 or email, [email protected].

Global Health Figures 

• Women live longer than men in all regions.
• Two out of every five deaths of both women and men in Africa are still caused by infectious and parasitic diseases.
• Women are more likely than men to die from cardiovascular diseases, especially in Europe.
• Breast cancer among women and lung cancer among men top the list of new cancer cases globally.
• Women constitute the majority of HIV-Hpositive adults in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East.
• The vast majority of the over half a million maternal deaths in 2005 occurred in developing countries.
• The proportion of pregnant women receiving prenatal care is on the rise in many regions.
• Despite intensified efforts for reduction, Africa remains the region with the highest child mortality.
• Data reveal no significant disparity in the proportion of underweight girls and boys.

More here about Global Trends amd Statistics for Women.

More than 1 billion in the world today, the great majority of whom are women, live in unacceptable conditions of poverty, mostly in the developing countries. Poverty has various causes, including structural ones. Poverty is a complex, multidimensional problem, with origins in both the national and international domains.

When women are poor, their rights are not protected. They face obstacles that may be extraordinarily difficult to overcome. This results in deprivation in their own lives and losses for the broader society and economy, as women's productivity is well known as one of the greatest generators of economic dynamism.

More here about Global Poverty of Women.

Women in Poverty

• Households of lone mothers with young children are more likely to be poor than households of lone fathers with young children.
• Women are more likely to be poor than men when living in one-person households in many countries from both the more developed and the less developed regions.
• Women are overrepresented among the older poor in the more developed regions.
• Existing statutory and customary laws limit women’s access to land and other types of property in most countries in Africa and about half the countries in Asia.
• Fewer women than men have cash income in the less developed regions, and a significant proportion of married women have no say in how their cash earnings are spent.
• Married women from the less developed regions do not fully participate in intrahousehold decision-making on spending, particularly in African countries and in poorer households.

Ministry Ideas

• Small buiness development
• Money management seminar
• Debt counseling
• Food baskets for needy families
• Family Hygiene Packs with personal hygiene products
• Meals for a homeless shelter
• School supplies for needy children
• Blankets in winter time
• Retirement planning seminar
• Community vegetable garden
• Community classes: adult literacy, hygiene, and basic sanitation
• Widow support groups
• Offer medical/spiritual assistance in partnership with Health Ministries department
• Develop and implement anti-poverty projects in partnership with other departments in the church and community
• Enable women in your church and community to meet the needs of those living in poverty
• Provide information on how to access low-cost legal services, including literacy programs, health care assistance, and educational service especially designed to reach women living in poverty

Source: Women's Ministries Six Issues - Poverty brochure

View one-minute video about Women's Ministries Six Issues including poverty, click here and scroll to second video.

Royalties from sales of Altogether Lovely, the 2015 women's devotional book, help fund Scholarshipping Our Sisters (SOS). In the past 20 years this GCWM program awarded one million scholarship dollars to 2,164 women in 124 countries.

Order book online, Adventist Book Center. Donate online, SOS Scholarship Fund.

Health & Wellness: Secrets That Will Change Your Life, Mark A Finley and Peter N Landless, editors. Order book online, Adventist Book Center

• Listen first
• Encourage creativity
• Be passionate
• Have a positive attitude
• Keep trying new things

• Don’t skip breakfast
• Make small talk
• Hydrate
• Call a friend
• Get enough sleep

March 7

International Women's Day of Prayer is celebrated by GC Women's Ministries the first Sabbath of March. Each year a sermon packet with suggestions for a special church service and seminars is provided free. To download the 2015 packet, It Is Well (The woman, the prophet, and the prayer), click here.

March 8

International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.

March

• 7  Women's International Day of Prayer
• 21 International Day Against Racial Discrimination
• 25 Begin 100 Days of Prayer

April

• 7 World Health Day
• 7 Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Rwanda Genocide

• 100 Days of Prayer, March 25-July 11, 2015
• Women's Health
• Women in Outreach Ministries
• Young Women
• Revival & Reformation
• Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
• GC Session Women's Meetings

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2015 #1 Jan-Feb

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2014 #2 Mar-Apr

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