Women’s Ministries Report at Annual Council

On Monday, October 10, 2022, the Annual Council of the Executive Committee of the General Conference received the report of the Women’s Ministries Department, presented by Heather-Dawn Small the director, and Nilde Itin, the newly appointed associate director of Women’s Ministries. The video presentation made a world tour, showing what women are doing as they go and reach their world with the message of Jesus' love. The video focused on the three areas, Nurture, Empower, and Outreach under the overall theme: “I Will Go Reach My World.”
We would like to share this report with you:
“Why my world? Because we want our sisters to focus first on their homes, then their extended family members, their neighborhoods, their workplaces, and those missing from the church family. God has called our sisters to do a work for him. Since 2005 we have taken our marching orders from the book Ministry of Healing page 143 “Christ’s method alone…” and Isaiah 61:1-3. Women are natural caregivers and following the example of Jesus is our goal - touching the hurting, wiping falling tears, hugging those in sorrow, loving those in pain, preaching the Word, and starting small groups in our homes. This is our calling and women are answering.
Even during difficult times, our sisters were still reaching their world for Jesus. COVID-19 did not slow the work of this department, instead it gave our sisters greater impetus to find creative ways to reach out to others. We thank God for moving us beyond what we were comfortable with, to what we thought was impossible. With God’s help and wisdom, women have learned to use social media to reach their world. They have given many Bible studies on WhatsApp and Zoom and continue to use social media to fulfill their part in God’s mission.
Nurture is our first area of focus and emphasizes spiritual, social, physical, and mental development. As you watch you will see that we accomplish this by mentoring our young girls with Girls for Christ retreats and God’s Princesses events. This year our sisters were excited to return to in-person women’s retreats. Since Covid-19 women are more actively involved in Bible study and prayer groups held in-person, online, and on WhatsApp. We continue to thank God for the GCWM devotional book which is printed in different countries and has been in existence since 1992.
Empower: Covid-19 caused an increase in online events. Programs on YouTube and Facebook live as well as in-person events where possible became the norm as our leaders trained our sisters in various areas such as Leadership Certification, vegetable gardening, mental health, support groups training, use of social media, healthy cooking, training leaders in how to reach our teens and young women, teaching them how to hold a literacy program, and teaching them new skills that would aid their families.
Our GCWM “Scholarshipping Our Sisters” program continued with donors giving as much as usual and sometimes even more than usual during Covid.
Outreach: We continue to be amazed by the generosity and courage of our sisters as they moved among their community giving food, comfort, and prayer. They visited abused women in shelters providing them with much-needed supplies.
Enditnow continues to be a community outreach program. Our ladies take to the streets handing out literature on the dangers of abuse. They also visited schools teaching children that abuse is wrong and what they can do if they are being abused.
Women were also involved in preaching at evangelistic meetings, visiting prisoners and donating supplies, visiting schools to teach Bible study, and presenting children with their first Bibles. They took food and clothes to those in need in villages, gave blankets to the elderly, fed the hungry, and visited the lonely in their homes.
The GCWM training resource “Building Bridges Woman to Woman” continues to be used to train our sisters in reaching out to other women.”