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Selected Articles from the First Alliance LifeLines Newsletter Summer 2010

CELEBRATE COMMUNITY

Women of Faith by Tawni Palin
It was a room of 5,000 women, seven marvelous speakers and music that physically and mentally blew us away. While that is a lot of estrogen, it is also a great time.

“It was awesome,” Mary Palin exclaimed.

The Women of Faith conference was held at the Rimrock Auto Arena in Metra Park on April 9–10. This year’s theme was Imagine with the theme song being “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The stage performances started in the morning with the Worship Team. The team members are from all over the country: Jenifer Thigpen from Orlando, FL, Allison Abbott & Janice Ganies from Nashville, TN and Laura Cooksey from Dunwoody, GA.

The Worship Team all love singing, and as they trek from city to city, they take comfort in hanging out with each other.

“The speakers are great, and the fact that we get to be with each other makes the experience all the more enjoyable,” Abbott commented.

“The nice thing about this conference is that it is on the weekends, so we can see our families during the week,” said Jenifer Thigpen, and they all agreed.

The first speaker on stage was author Sheila Walsh. She spoke on trust and how difficult it is for women to trust God, especially when things do not go the way they planned.

Next up to speak was author Marcus Buckingham. “Strengths are activities that make you feel strong,” he told the audience. He challenged everyone to focus more on their strengths and the things that make them feel energized. For more about his work, visit www.tmbc.com.

Karen James was another speaker whose story almost had the whole room in tears; James is the widow of one of the four men who died on Mount Hood in 2006. James spoke of their marriage, of how scared she was during the storm, of her last conversation with her husband, Kelly, and the feeling of being widowed on national television after being a newscaster for years.

A week before Christmas, Kelly decided he wanted to climb with his brother and some friends, which resulted in the last climb of their lives. Yet James’ message was one of hope and recovery. She dwelled on the same topic as Sheila Walsh did: trust. She had to trust that God had a plan.

These are just three of the nine amazing speakers; each had a message just as marvelous as the one before. The others were Lisa Harper, Nicole C. Mullen, Natalie Grant, Nicole Johnson, Michelle Aguilar and Luci Swindoll.

“What I really like about this weekend was how personal it was. I mean there are thousands of women, and still the speakers seem to talk to you personally,” explained Melissa Hanser.

“My favorite thing about these weekends is the connectedness,” stated Mary Graham, President of Women of Faith.

Randi Long said, “I think for me the speaker that I felt most impacted me was Michelle Aguilar.”

Luci Swindoll left us with these words of wisdom, “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, tolerant of both the weak and strong because some day in life, you’ll have been all of these.”

CELEBRATE KEENAGERS

A Great BBQ June 18
Keenagers met on June 18th for a BBQ at Dave and Connie Hunter's home. Chris and Becca told about their work in Haiti helping build a house. Barbara Volstad shared about her missionary work in Chile and about the earthquake. The Hunter family entertained us with a comical shaving skit. Dave was the chef and BBQ'd hamburgers and hot dogs. 34 attended. ~ Wilma Engen

Perfect Picnic Sans Bugs
A picnic in the middle of April in Montana? Highly unlikely! Rain, wind, snow and sleet in the forecast?! But forty-nine Keenagers had a picnic on April 16th and the weather was beautiful—we were in the multi-purpose room at church! The hotdogs and potato salad, etc. really “hit the spot.” Some light-hearted bantering and a few ancient jokes led us to the main attraction—a travelog to Thailand, following on the heels of Dan and Karen Palin. It was well done and gave us an appreciation of a different culture in a land far away. Eating bugs (well cooked) would be a challenge for most of us, but Dan was up to it. Doesn’t potato salad and hotdogs sound better?!! ~ Janice Vigesaa

A Special Visit
On May 13 the Keenagers managed to find their way to the Special K Ranch on the Yellowstone River between Park City and Columbus in beautiful Stillwater county.

God provided us with a beautiful day to enjoy the outdoors and a picnic provided by the ranch, but more than that we were spiritually moved by the lives of the residents as they did their daily chores. The residents all, except for four men, live with house parents that provide the necessary daily guidance for the residents to live an active working and spiritual life. The friendliness and the willingness of the residents to greet us and show us around the ranch was a testament to the outstanding Godly work that is being done by the house parents and associates at the ranch.

We toured the greenhouse operation and were very impressed by the amount of work and the number of customers that were supported by the ranch. The ranch provide hothouse plants for several ACE hardware stores throughout the state as well as Billings Hardware. The ranch also provides and owns 200 ewes and their lambs all who seemed to have had twins this year. They also had several head of cattle, some chickens and other associated barnyard critters which are taken care of daily by the residents under the direction of the house parents and associates. Impressive, Godly work! ~ Ron Frank

OTHER CELEBRATIONS

“Seasonings of the Soul” women's retreat April 9–11 was a great blessing to everyone who came, even though some gave up their attendance at Women of Faith that weekend. Marlene Dillavou and her team did a great job organizing the event and God blessed! "It was a fabulous meeting...one of the best meetings we've ever had," exclaimed Eva Mae Junkert.

Gabon medical mission team: Gayla, Sharla, Christy & Kelsey successfully ministered to the people there despite some challenges along the way. Their stories are amazing! Along with medical care, time was spent at an orphanage—Hope House—as well.

Caleb & Becca Olfert helped build one and a half houses in Haiti with the proceeds from the outpouring of donations received from FAC and elsewhere and just plain hard work. They were very grateful for the support, allowing them the opportunity to make a lasting difference there.

For the second year in a row Kim Burdick volunteered for Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build, siding a house on May 6, a very cold, windy, snowy day. Kim won a drawing: a print called, “The Homecoming.” Says Kim, “I’m planning to get more involved this year in helping. It gives me a chance to get out with people who are most likely not associated with a church while also being able to serve the Billings community.”

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.
NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.