Saturday, February 19, 2011

Sweet Night for Wives of the Deployed

Last weekend Carol Summar Simpson was a guest on Misawa. I have served with Carol on PWOC Central Region Board and knew that she has a big heart for women and an engaging way of presenting her  message. Carol tours military bases as a Christian Comedian. I knew she'd done Valentine's Day events for deployed spouses and it was a dream to host her if I was ever where the budget and the group vision lined up.  At our summer Misawa PWOC board planning meeting I shared my heart and our ladies RAN with it. Our chapel agreed to up our budget enough to allow us to pull off this event. 


Misawa's PWOC board invited Carol to be our guest speaker at a night planned for wives of our deployed spouses. We chose February on purpose as this is another holiday that goes in the "missed holiday file" for deployed spouses. We chose to have dessert and drinks and make it a "Sweet Night for Wives of the Deployed". Our POC, Twyla, is herself a deployed spouse. It was my joy to serve as her assistant during this event. During the planning  7 of our 9 board members were deployed spouses themselves. Twyla's heart of mercy and vision for deployed spouses made this event SHINE. 
We envisioned a night of pampering for our spouses and HUMOR. What a blessing! It's good for the weary to laugh. We had 79 people in the building. Only 18 turned out to be deployed spouses....but they were blessed. Everyone was treated to a variety of decadent and elegant homemade desserts. Each woman had a pretty setting, flowers and a chocolate rose.





Carol shared the adventure of her trip from CA to Misawa with us. She had us laughing as we remembered our first impressions of Japan. She had some of us crying with her lessons learned from deployments..."I DO snore", "No matter how deep I burrow into the covers no one else will let the dog out", and more. She encouraged us to maintain faith on behalf of others through the story of the four friends who brought their friend to Jesus, doing whatever it took to get him to Jesus. 



 The deployed wives were gifted with a handmade pillowcase - Twyla rocks! These were made from Japanese fabric. 

An event like this is a huge undertaking. The entire PWOC board participated. Many other women baked desserts, ministered to children, set up tables, cleaned up facilities, decorated.....it was a great time to be part of the body. 

Our prayer is that each deployed spouse left feeling pampered, loved, supported and encouraged. She also knows what the local chapel has to offer and that we care about her deeply. 


Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

1 comment:

Cynthia said...

What a great ministry opportunity.