San Antonio, Tex.-United Methodist Women elected their national leadership at the South Central Jurisdiction meeting March 12-14 in San Antonio, Tex.
  

The women elected 8 women who will serve as the decision-making body of the Women’s Division, responsible for close to $20 million a year in mission funds and for leadership of the 1-million member United Methodist Women.

Elected directors for the next four years to the Women’s Division include:

·            Hazel Steely, Kansas East Conference

·              Josephine Deere, Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference

·              Kathleen Carter Conrad, Louisiana Conference

·              Inelda Gonzalez, Southwest Texas

·              Judith Ball, Missouri Conference

·              Teressa Navarro, Rio Grande Conference

·              Marilyn Zehring, Nebraska Conference

·              Rita Arni, Missouri Conference

Alternates -- should any of the new directors not be able to complete their term - are Brenda Canty, Louisiana; Karon Mann, Arkansas; and Ellen Lipsey, New Mexico.

Members of the organization’s South Central Jurisdiction Core Planning Group -- which plans regional mission-related events and serves as a link between United Methodist Women and the Women=s Division - were also elected at this event. Each conference sent voting delegates to the quadrennial meeting to elect Women’s Division members.  Delegates also include members of the core planning group, current directors from the region, a deaconess, and bishops from the region.
 

Besides the election business of the meeting, United Methodist Women also came to San Antonio for worship, singing, and education about mission with women and children.

Bible Study leader, Andris Salter, focused on the meeting’s theme:  Vessels of Mission.  Ms. Salter is the assistant general secretary of administration in the Women’s Division.
  

She shared the importance of women in her life who modeled for her what it meant to be a Christian and what God expected of her.  Addressing all the women as vessels of God’s mission, she said:

“Isn’t it fantastic that we have a God that can, and has, used this empty vessel to do good works, to be something wonderful?  And when we get old, cracked, broken, lost, fragile, we are not put out to pasture, for the potter still has a purpose for us! We can still be used.”

Genie Bank, Women’s Division president, addressed the South Central women with similar challenges, also using the image of God as a potter.

“In 1869, when a few women met to talk about mission, God was already working in their lives.  Those women were being molded by the potter even as they gathered that first night in Boston.  Prayer was a vital part of their gatherings, as was Bible Study,” said Ms. Bank.   It was through prayer and study of the scriptures that the potter was forming the women to be women in mission.
           

The molding continued and the mission movement began as the women sent out their first missionaries to India.  But, the movement - now 135 years old -- flourished because of the women who stayed at home.

“They were in mission, too, and became just as important a part of the potter’s plan as those who were sent,” said Ms. Bank.

The Women's Division represents United Methodist Women, a one-million member organization whose purpose is to foster spiritual growth, develop leaders and advocate for justice.  Members raised close to $20 million a year for programs and projects related to women, children and youth in the United States and in more than 100 countries around the world.

	See Also... Topic: Women |  Geographic Region: South Central U.S. |  Source: WD Press Releases
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Date posted: Mar 18, 2004