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Get Ready…

Posted by Sara on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 in News | Comments (5)

Our Wives of Faith Board of Directors got together this week for a meeting via Skype. It was our first time not to meet in person since my husband and I made the move to South Carolina last month, but I was happy to see the distance made no difference in our discussion and planning that took place!

We have some great folks leading on our Board and I hope for you to get to know each of them over the coming months. Shauna Irizarry has been with WoF the longest (besides me), serving on our original leadership team, and has become heavily involved, not just as a board member, but also heads up the Rutherford County local Wives of Faith group as well as our Prayer Ministry. My husband, Cliff, a Navy Reservist in his 13th year of service  has been there since the beginning too and now offers his civilian marketing and promotion experience to our board.

Deanna Fullerton has some incredible experience in her professional work with the National Guard, as well as being a National Guard wife for more than 20 years. She’s a wonderful asset to us in terms of knowing and making available the resources that are out there for military spouses.  And Stephanie Arredondo has been working very hard behind the scenes with our treasurer, Allison McCord, to get our i’s dotted and our t’s crossed when it comes to our books. Stephanie’s business background and corporate board experience has already helped us a great deal. As a National Guard wife, Stephanie shares the Wives of Faith vision to reach and encourage other military wives and I’m excited she’s serving on our board.

(For more info on each of our board members, feel free to check out our Board page, under the About section. )

During our meeting, we discussed many things but there are three important pieces of news I’d like you to know about now.

Our biggest news? We are now a 501 c (3) non-profit ministry! We will post a more formal announcement in the coming days, but we applied and have been accepted by Logos Global Network as an associate ministry under their organization. Our ministry and all decisions will still be autonomous to Wives of Faith, but through LGN, we now can accept tax-deductible donations. This has been a desire of mine for a long time for us to be able to raise money and resources that will not just keep the ministry going but be put into ministries and programs that will directly bless and encourage you and other military wives and now, with this news, we’ll be able to do that.

So with that change, we also have a few changes happening online with this website. Our poll we’ve been running for about a month now has received great response and has helped us pinpoint what new features you’d like to see with Wives of Faith. We will be redoing our website during the month of July so please bear with us as you notice changes.

One addition that received the highest number of votes will be a weekly Daily Word of Encouragement. We would love to eventually turn this into a Daily, but we will need your help to do that. More details on that to come…

Another addition we are working on is a message board. This was the second highest vote from our poll. We currently have been “sharing” a message board with FMWCN but we’ve had several requests for us to create an online community here on our own website and I’m happy to announce that Crystal Perry, an Air Force wife currently stationed in New Mexico, has agreed to be our Message Board Director and is working on our board as I type this! :) She will need help, though, so…

  • if you consider yourself a “people person”
  • if you LOVE chatting online with other ladies
  • you’re familiar with how message boards work and like the idea of helping be part of starting one from the ground up
  • if you find yourself wondering how you can help encourage other military wives
  • you love the mission of Wives of Faith and want to be more involved…

then Crystal wants to hear from you! Email her at crystal@wivesoffaith.org and let her know you’d like to help as a moderator!

And last but certainly not least, we are talking about holding another conference! Several of you have asked over the last year or so if we might be planning anything and this week when our Board got together, someone made the suggestion that it was time to do another one. This one will occur next year in 2011 in honor of Wives of Faith’s Fifth Anniversary. It will be in Nashville and we are looking at September tentatively. Once we have some more details confirmed, we’ll send out a “Save the Date” notice, but if this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, let us know!

So, sorry for the long update, but I wanted you to know what’s happening and that we’re moving forward with a lot of fun and exciting things. Thanks to all of you who have been updating your member info with Jessica – it’s been fun to hear from everyone and especially those of you who have been so sweet to share what Wives of Faith means to you. (And if you haven’t yet become a member, let this be your invitation! It’s free! Here’s the member form…)

It is my fervent prayer and desire that this is a ministry that helps you connect with other military wives while connecting and growing deeply into the women God desires you to be. If there’s anything we can help you with, please don’t be afraid to ask! (sara@wivesoffaith.org)

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Leave No Wife Behind

Posted by Sara Horn on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 in News | Comments (0)

Registration for our Spring Survival Sisters Semester has closed and I am so excited to see what God has in store for these precious women as we get ready to start March 1st!

If you’re just now hearing about Survival Sisters and wondering what it is, this is a program Wives of Faith started last spring that matches military wives together for friendship and prayerful support.

We have 48 military wives participating this semester – 24 pairs – ranging in ages 24 to 46 with newlyweds of 8 months represented as well as seasoned marrieds of 28 years. States represented include California, Oregon, Washington State, New York, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, New Mexico, South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and as far away as Hawaii and the country of Singapore!

While the majority of our ladies are either currently going through deployments or about to, we have eighteen who have signed up for the semester who indicated on their registration forms that they either just finished a deployment or are not in one at this time. Almost all of these 18 ladies listed their reason for being part of Survival Sisters as a way to help pass on support to someone else that they had either received or wished they’d received going through their own deployments. Friends, this is one of my deepest desires for Wives of Faith – that as we grow spiritually through our experiences as military wives, that we won’t keep it locked away inside us but that we will be willing to reach out and be available for God to use us in helping others! So to have these ladies join us to give back to others makes me so happy. Absolutely awesome!

Emails will go out this weekend to participants with details of their Survival Sister matches and what to expect during this 10-week semester that begins March 1 and wraps up the first week in May (culminating in Military Spouse Appreciation Day). Our theme is “Leave No Wife Behind” and we will be looking at specific women in the Bible with characteristics we can apply to our lives as military wives today. Women who exhibited strength, passion, hope and a deep desire to follow God’s will.

In the meantime,  if you’re not involved in this semester, please consider joining us in prayer and ask God to bless the matches that will be made and the wonderful friendships and prayerful support will be had by all and that He will be honored in everything we do.

CALLING ALL BLOGGERS: Our next blog carnival is scheduled for May 1-8 in honor of Military Spouse Appreciation Day! Put it on your calendars – it’s going to be lots of fun!

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God Strong Releases This Month

Posted by Sara Horn on Monday, February 1st, 2010 in Books | Comments (3)

I’m thrilled to let you know that my new book, God Strong: A Military Wife’s Spiritual Survival Guide, releases this month. If there ever was a book that defined what Wives of Faith is about, this is it. I wrote it to be a reminder to myself and to other wives so we can remember whose strength it is we really need to lean on.

After all, strength is a big part of being part of a military wife, isn’t it? Without it, how could we function? Yet too often we convince ourselves we can do it all, take care of everything and keep it all together – but eventually our own strength runs out. But God offers an unending supply. That’s what being God Strong is all about.

We will be having some fun giveaways and promotions later this month, but I wanted to let you know that Amazon has officially released it, and it will be available at a bookstore near you if it isn’t already (official release date is Feb. 15). My publisher, Zondervan, has the first two pages of each chapter available for you to see at their website as well as a sample chapter from the audio book.

Also, if you’d like to do the book with a group or do some additional Bible study on your own, I’m excited to tell you that I’ve created a special group guide and individual guide that’s free and available for download (visit godstrongbook.com).

We’re taking signups right now for our God Strong Street Team so be sure to check that out – Street Team members will receive a free copy of the book, a cool Living God Strong T-shirt (limited availability) as well as behind the scenes exclusives as we start doing book signings and speaking events.

If you’re on Facebook, please consider signing up for our fan page at facebook.com/godstrongbook. Media interviews, bookstore appearances and speaking engagements will all be posted there.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. I hope the book encourages and inspires military wives to be everything God has called them to be.

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