Another Successful Year of Women By Grace

I sit here humbled, with tear stained eyes after toady's celebration brunch. The end of Bible Study is always a bittersweet time. I am usually ready for a break from the demand this ministry takes on my life, but it also means that I need to say goodbye to wonderful friends. Saying goodbye is one aspect of military life that many "civilians" do not understand. Saying goodbye after living together on Okinawa is something that very few, even military families, ever expericne. Okinawa provides a very different experience. First of all, very few people actually have family out here, so most people are literally thousands of miles from their loved ones. When a person is stripped of all things familiar, when they are living alone on a tiny island no more than 15 miles wide and 70 miles long, they tend to grow very intimate friendships very quickly. We truly become a family in every sense of the word. Thanksgiving would not be Thanksgiving without at least 20 people eating turkey and fixings off monkey pod plates from the Philippines shipment at the gift shop!

The women I had to send off today each have a very special and unique place in my heart. God used them each to grow me and stretch me in so many ways. God always knows what you need and He often sends it in the form of a friend. We have held each others new borns, cried with each other after sending our husbands off to war, been each other's surrogate mothers and husbands to fill in the gap when our real husband is on the road yet again to some remote part of Asia, we have laughed our heads off at the FUNNIEST things ever. So my heart is heavy this evening knowing that once again, the face of my ministry, that my day in and day out life here on Okinawa is going to change yet again...

I do know this; God will send who we need to help us grow and help us coniue to minister to the women who find themselves all of the sudden in the "Land of the Not Quite Right". God let me see something so special today. Often at the end of a Bible Study year, I open the floor to the ladies to share. Sometimes no one takes me up on my offer, sometimes I get one or two. Today I had woman after woman stand up and speak about the difference that Women By Grace has made in their lives and most importantly their relationship with Jesus Christ. What a gift for me to be able to see that what we are doing is making a difference in the lives of others. Not only that... God is using this ministry to change and grow me. For what, remains to be seen. All that matters is I am obedient to all that He asks of me.

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