Meet Tracie Warren, New Vice President of Leadership Development

Who are we
Dec 152010

Wow!  I am so grateful for the amazing privilege of serving in the ministry of PWOCI for the 2010-2012 term.  The Lord has been casting vision and laying ideas on my heart for several months now, and I am excited to see where this journey with Him will lead.  Having just had the wonderful opportunity to serve on the previous PWOCI Leadership Development Team, one thing I know is that it definitely won’t be dull.  During that term of service, the Lord certainly took us on a W.I.L.D. ride, and I have the distinct feeling that the ride isn’t over yet.  I can almost hear the rollercoaster click, click, click, as we begin this new adventure with Him.

I attended my first PWOC Bible study at Mountain Home AFB, ID in 2002.  As a young Christian, it was there that I began to grasp what it truly means to walk with Christ.  My life was radically, and forever, changed.  The effects of that change cascaded into my family, and impacted the lives of my husband and sons.  Speaking of my husband and sons…I have been blessed with a wonderful family.  I am married to my best friend and the love of my life, Shane.  We have two amazing sons, Brandon (14 yrs) and Matthew (10 yrs).  Our family loves the outdoors and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation.  Our most recent favorite activity is hiking in the beautiful areas of Colorado.  In addition to spending time with my family, I have a passion for God’s Word and I love teaching.

Leadership development is a key activity for PWOC.  With the nature of our ministry in the military there is a steady state of transition, and raising up leaders becomes necessary for consistency at our local installations.  We need leaders – for today and tomorrow.  Consequently, we need to develop strategies to consistently and effectively equip and encourage those leaders.  My heart’s desire is to ensure we provide training and resources that will continue to equip women, in both hearts and hands, for their service in leadership.  Will you join me in praying that God will give us His strategy for the future of this leadership training within PWOCI?

Much Love to All,

Tracie Warren, 2nd VP Leadership Development

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Our New President

President's Pen, Who are we
Dec 082010

Hello Friends!

I am so thankful to God for the opportunity to serve together with you in the ministry of PWOC International. I’m also very thankful for the loving service and amazing foundation laid by our previous presidents over the past 50 plus years. The Lord has been taking us on an incredible adventure together, revealing His treasures and His wisdom to us along the way. And He has so much more in store for us! So let’s get started by way of introductions.

My husband, Rod, and I have been married for 23 years and we’re still falling in love with each other again and again. Rod is a dynamic Army chaplain and teacher, a pilot and certified flight instructor; he enjoys encouraging and developing leaders. I’m a homeschooling mom of our five awesome kids (ages 15-21). I love to run, sing, and play guitar in my free time. My heart’s desire is to see women live in a deep, vibrant, love relationship with God and then serve out of the overflow of that relationship. Our family shares a strong passion for worship, prayer, and genuine relationships with God and people.

Now, about that adventure I mentioned….For the past few years, PWOC has been rediscovering our identity as the Bride of Christ. We’ve been learning to sit at our Redeemer’s feet, to gaze upon His beauty, to receive His overwhelming love for us. We’ve been learning to accept His favor and to rise and walk in it. It’s been a time of listening to the love song that God sings over us (see Zephaniah 3:17) and returning to our first love (see Revelation 2:4-5). We’ve responded by singing the love song back to Him. It’s now time for that love song to become the basis of our battle cry.

In the movie The Last of the Mohicans, there’s a love song (it’s called “The Kiss” for those of you who are going to look it up on You Tube) that has the same theme as the battle song (“Promontory”), during which the enemy is overtaken and destroyed. Just like the song in the movie, the love song God has been singing over His bride is now carrying the overtones of a battle rhythm. With our awakened love for God and with full confidence that comes from His favor and grace, PWOC International will rise up and advance the Kingdom by declaring God’s message of love. His love song is our battle cry!

So let’s sing His love to those who need it most. Will you pray with me for God to show us His strategy for touching the world with His love?

Love and blessing,

Beth Mills\o/

PWOC International President

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Presidents Farewell

Leadership Development, Leadership Wednesday, President's Pen
Nov 032010

Dear Beloved of God,

In my final letter to you as PWOC International president, please allow me the opportunity to express my heart to you one last time.

In this role, I have seen God’s hand move in incredible ways within PWOC.  Throughout this journey, my desire has been to help us connect deeply with the heart of God and communicate our need to return to our first love, Jesus Christ, so that we could be free to fulfill His plan for our lives.  As I have spoken with many of you through emails, Facebook and at many PWOC events, I sensed that as a group of women, we are desiring more than just a religious experience inside four walls, we are desiring a true and deeper relationship with our Lord.  Perhaps it is due to the pressure of the almost ten years our nation has been fighting the war against terrorism.  Whatever the reason, God knows the season we are in and will work it together for our good and His kingdom purposes.

Over these past four years, I have had the honor to work with two incredible international boards.  I appreciate them so much for waiting on the Lord with me, for being passionate about hearing from the Lord in His assignment for us and for their willingness to go the distance needed in order to accomplish God’s vision for His ministry.  As I have told them before, I love hanging out under their “fruit trees”.  I have learned so much from each of them.

I would like to thank the following people for blessing me with their support in this term of office:  first, our official PWOC sponsor, US Army Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain Carver for his support of PWOC. Your example of being a worship “warrior” and having a heart like King David has encouraged me and has caused me to press in deeper with our Lord; Chaplain Puchy for being our PWOCI Chaplain through the thick and thin.  Your spiritual leadership encouraged each of us.  You are a vision caster, who has a true pastor’s heart.  The PWOCI Executive Board:  Lucia, Cinky and Melinda, you three are incredible women of God!  It has been an honor to be a part of this team with each of you.  We have seen the Lord weave His message of love for all of us in such amazing ways.  You have helped connect our hearts to those who know little to nothing about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, much less the ministry of PWOC.  Thank you for your support.  I will never forget our times of prayer in seeking God’s face for the ministry and the work we did together.  “Align, Arise & Shine” was truly a God breathed vision for the work our board would do together.

To the PWOC International Board (aka the Glory Train ministry team), each of you helped put His vision for us into motion.  It has been a great adventure and I believe we have all been stretched in our gifts, relationships and callings while on this board.  But more than that, I believe we have become God’s beautiful harmonious symphony sound that I have spoken about.  You have heard His sound and are singing His song.  It’s simply beautiful!

To the PWOCI Titus II Advisors, Becky Shirey and Rhonda Mixon and our prayer coordinator, Dawn Kennedy, you three have been instrumental in helping me through the thick and thin.  You are true prayer warriors and advisors who walk in the love and wisdom of God.  Thank you for holding me accountable, teaching me so much and holding up my arms.  I loved strategizing with each of you and processing the revelation and wisdom of God for this ministry.

Thank you to our eight regional presidents and boards and Europe’s area boards who have been our feet on the ground, connecting with our beautiful local PWOC women.  You have each been instrumental in pushing out the vision of PWOC International.  I love how you each have connected with one another as well.  Keep up the great work.  I know you will be a wonderful help and blessing to our new PWOC International president this upcoming year.

A special thank you to Dutch Sheets, Lee Grady, Cheryl Wright, Chaplain Doug Castle, Chaplain (Ret.) Lou Shirey and Valerie Bixler who have personally come to help equip and teach the PWOC International Board more things about the power of prayer, our intimacy with the Lord, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God, the fundamentals of understanding forgiveness and trusting God, all of which are crucial teachings in this season we are in.   Also, thank you to Dustin Britt, Blake Howard, the team at Matchstic and Jennifer Cook for their help in providing our refreshed graphic look and helping us to communicate who we are.  I would work with all of you again any time.  Thank you again to Jennifer Cook and Jodie Brickson for your help with our PWOCI themes.  God has gifted you both with incredible creativity and talent.  I would like to thank Erin Nonaka for managing our PWOCI blog, which posts daily words of encouragement for our women.  And Shellie Kelly for the many hours she worked with us from the Army Chief of Chaplains office. And speaking of the Army Chief of Chaplains Office, everyone who worked with us, Chaplain Robinson, Chaplain Warden, Chaplain Lees, Nina Joyner and many others, we couldn’t have done all that we do without you.  All these amazing people and many more have blessed the ministry of PWOC in so many ways.  May the work of your hands produce a harvest of much fruit in years to come.

Thank you to each of my personal prayer intercessors, those I knew and those I didn’t.  Each of you served as a crucial part of my ministry team.  Thank you for praying for my family and I over these past four years.  I knew you were praying.  Any additional prayers you want to send on our behalf as I transition into my new role would be equally appreciated.

Thank you PWOC women for the many ways you bless our chaplains, our chapel communities and the many women within PWOC.  I know that this ministry will continue to take the love and good news of Jesus Christ to many more people than it does now.  It is His desire that we fulfill His great commission.

I want to thank my family for all their prayers, sacrifice and support.  I love each of you so much.  To my wonderful husband, David, who is truly my treasured gift from God, thank you!  You are the love of my life and my knight in shining armor.  Thank you for the many ways you have blessed the women of PWOC by praying with me for them. Thank you for always listening and encouraging me along the way.  I could not have done this without you.  May the Lord bless you for your great sacrifice in this season of our lives.

And to my Lord, Jesus Christ, I love you more than I ever thought humanly possible. You have given me the greatest treasure of all, a heart that is free to love You, to dance with You, to sing to You and to share that love with Your people.  Oh, how you have rend my heart for You. May your sons and daughters be open and unhindered in allowing You to do the same for them, for if they do, I know they will not be disappointed.

Thank you for the honor and blessing of being able to serve you as the PWOC International president these past four years.  May the Lord call each of you into a deeper relationship with Him.  You can never exhaust the depths of His love for you.

“…Arise My Darling, My beautiful one and come with Me”.  Song of Songs 2:10, 14 NIV

To God Alone Be All the Glory

Posted by Brenda Marlin at 2:00 am Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

You Can Pray

Prayer Points
Sep 102010

Submitted by Dawn Kennedy, International Prayer

PWOC is one of the most amazing women’s ministries in the world!  A group of sisters:  drawn together by their love for Jesus and their common military experiences.  It gives my heart joy to think there are 10,000 of us around the world studying, worshipping, sharing, training, and lifting one another up.  As I meet sisters from around the globe, one question haunts me.

Over and over women quietly pull me aside and share that they don’t feel comfortable praying.  It is everyone: new believers, young moms, seasoned saints, even women who have been in church all their lives. The good news is God does not condemn you.  He is drawing and wooing us and He wants to equip us.  And to take liberty with a few words repeated by a little mouse named Ratatouille (use your French accent, please!), “Anyone can pray!”

Praying is simply conversation with God, and conversation is a skill most of us have in abundance.  A conversation is not one person doing all that talking.  That would be a lecture.  Imagine two close friends sipping coffee, pouring out their hearts to one another.  One may talk less, one may bubble over with words, but they both share and they both listen.

I have been intercessor since childhood, but I am learning something new everyday.  Almost every day I ask the Holy Spirit to teach me how to pray.  I confess to Him that I don’t know what I am doing and ask for His comfort and teaching to guide me.  Sometimes He leads me in sweet adoration, other times I weep for another’s pain or loss.  Some days I am fiery in war and cry out for the Lord of Hosts to come and intervene. And some days I am weary to the bone, and I can do nothing but sit at His feet in silence, letting His Presence soak the dry, empty places in my heart.  All of these things are prayer.

There is one type of prayer that we can all do, and it is probably my favorite.  I like to find one scripture, read it a few times thoughtfully, and then listen to My Shepherd’s voice as He whispers His mercy, His truth, His Life to me.  Fancy words don’t matter.  Talking to Him and listening to Him are JOY!

God has been capturing my attention with a scripture found in Isaiah 33:5-6.  It says:

The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high.

He has filled Zion with righteousness and justice.

He will be the sure foundation for your times,

a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge,

the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

God is a rich store of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.  We each come to the end of our ability to fix everyone around us.  When we come to the end of ourselves, we have reached the best place on earth: the beginning of His never ending supply.  Simple words from the heart are what He desires.

One year I desperately needed wisdom.  I did not know what to do.  Situations seemed complex and overwhelming.  I read Proverbs 9:10. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.   During that time, I did not know the ways of the Lord.  As I prayed my simple, “911” prayer all year, He began to teach me.

First, He began to set me free from being afraid of Him and afraid of punishment.  He removed my false foundation of fear, guilt, doubt and shame.  I didn’t even know those things were blocking the true reverential awe of the Lord in my life. But our enemy, satan, knew.  He wanted to stop the fear of the Lord in my life so that I could not open the God’s rich stores of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.   One simple prayer can change your life.  He wants to uproot the shaky places in  your foundation too.  I wonder what would happen if we began to trust Him with that process?  Would removing the false make room for the true?  Would you like the key to His treasure?   Anyone can pray, even you!

Posted by Dawn Kennedy at 2:00 am Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Leadership Development Update

Leadership Development, Leadership Wednesday
Jul 282010

Being a part of the military community, we are always learning new acronyms. One of the fun things about figuring them out is assigning your best guess or your funniest guess to the letters:-) Sometimes these acronyms help us to remember important or memory-worthy information. Although neither of these is military related, two of our latest favs are E.G.O. and W. O. W. E.G.O. stands for Exalt God Only and W.O.W. stands for Women of Wisdom – what Ft. Huachuca calls their seasoned sisters.

We picked up the last acronym during a W.I.L.D. Weekend. Speaking of acronyms – our Trainer bag has a subdued imprint of the W.I.L.D. logo on it. Most likely, Women Intent on Leadership Development is not the first guess most people have when they see it as we travel. As people take a really close look and see it spelled out, plus Protestant Women of the Chapel International underneath – there is usually a little smile that follows or a question. Some of our theme apparel and accessories receive some interesting glances too!

The W.I.L.D. Weekends have been fabulous!  We have incredible godly and dynamic sisters serving on our Regional boards! WoW! It has been such a treat and a joy to partner with them to meet and train this new season’s PWOC leaders! Some of you reading this update were there! We pray that you were as blessed and encouraged as your Training Team was in the time and energy that you invested to be there.

It would have been absolutely grand if all of you in leadership could have been there or were able to attend the upcoming one in your Region! Those of you who are hearing in your spirit a call to leadership would also have been blessed by the information on spiritual leadership and the wisdom shared by the seasoned leaders – our W.I.L.D. WOW!

The main purpose of W.I.L.D. Weekends is definitely not to exclude leaders or pre-leaders. As Brenda shared earlier in her June 9th PWOCI blog entry, the purpose is to provide more intentional spiritual leadership and board position training, as well as an opportunity for board team building as a foundation to the teams being built at your local installations. This is where we start “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12)!

The Leadership Development Team would like to share some of the information presented at this season’s W.I.L.D. Weekends on the PWOCI Blog’s - Leadership Wednesdays. We are going to start off using the acrostic LEADERSHIP over the next 10 weeks or so.  It’s not exactly an acronym, but close!

Look for more of this year’s leadership curriculum in the Leadership Development workshops at the PWOC International Conference in Dallas this November. A few more Web–based resources and possibilities are coming your way too!  Woo hoo! Technology to His Glory!

W.I.L.D. is the Heartbeat of Protestant Women of the Chapel International’s Leadership Development!

Posted by Cinky Jones at 2:00 am Tagged with: , , , , , ,

What Region Am I In?

News & Announcements, Who are we
Jul 152010

Did you know that PWOCI is divided into regions? Yes, folks we are. How else would we be able to reach so many women all over the world? Did you or are you PCSing and wonder where you will fit into PWOC at your next location?

Our regions include:

  • Alaska Region: Alaska
  • Asian Region: Korea, Japan
  • Pacific Region: Hawaii, Guam
  • West Region: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington
  • Central Region: Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin
  • Northeast Region: Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia
  • Southeast Region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee
  • Europe Region: Belgium, England, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey

On our PWOC website there is an installation locator. On this page, you can find up to date information on the PWOC chapter nearest to you. This amazing feature allows you to find out the meeting day, time, and location. You may also click on the installation name to make contact with them by email.

We all know how difficult it can be when you move. This resource will help you know where to find your new PWOC home as soon as you get there, if not before!

So ladies, if you are going to PCS this summer, check it out!!!

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Addressing PWOC Changes Part 1

Leadership Development, Leadership Wednesday, President's Pen
Jun 092010

You may have seen the bookmarks given out at the fall conferences or posted on our FaceBook site.  On the bookmark, we mentioned that the PWOC International Board and Joint Council (PWOCI Board along with the 8 regional presidents combined) have been considering some changes within PWOC.  I also mentioned some “needed changes” on our PWOC International Executive Board 2010 Vision video, which is now located on our website. I would like to address this in more detail with you.

As you may remember in my January 2009 President’s Letter, I mentioned that we were introducing the new Women’s Ministry Manual; Official Leaders’ Policy and Guidelines of Protestant Women of the Chapel and the new name for Traveling Training: W.I.L.D. – Women Intent on Leadership Development. These two items were the beginning of some of these changes and were a result of the development of PWOC International.

As the 2008-2010 PWOC International Executive Board began meeting and discussing the future needs of the ministry, we began praying about what we were observing and then later responded with recommendations for development and/or change for the related areas of PWOC.

1.   Leadership Development: we know that it is within PWOC’s “DNA” to raise up, train up and send out leaders.  In understanding this, we looked really hard at some of the things that we needed to provide our leaders, which were being addressed in some places and not in others.  In looking at our current leadership training offerings, we found that –

  • Traveling Training did a wonderful job of going out to the masses and training on topics of spiritual development and team building.
  • Most regions offered some level of leadership training at a central location for local board leadership, primarily that of president and vice president.  They focused their training on leadership issues, regional updates and peer relationship building. There was an exception to this in a few of our regions, which trained additional board positions; however, overall we found leadership training gaps and inconsistencies in our training models across the regions.
  • We needed more time to provide position specific training, which is vitally needed to help women fulfill their leadership roles on a practical level.
  • Chaplains and regional presidents were voicing concerns over issues that were arising within local PWOC’s.  Many of these concerns were based on misunderstandings and a lack of knowledge on practical positional roles, working together as a team and then how to work with their chaplains.
  • Traveling Training could not effectively address individual position training or practical board operations within the training model offered.
  • We needed to be able to cast a unified vision for the ministry, so that we would all be on the same page.  Our annual PWOCI Executive Board DVD video tried to accomplish this; however, it didn’t always connect with the training content or the theme.  We are learning that when all three are in sync with each other, there is a great synergistic effect, which helps our leadership join together in God’s plan for PWOC as a whole.
  • There is synergy and excitement when bringing groups together around a common vision and goal.  Ideas and support flow when we come together in a larger group.  Peer relationship building helps foster growth in both positional roles and in the Lord.

Based upon our findings, the PWOCI Executive Board felt it was time to pull the local leadership teams into one training event.  By working alongside our regional presidents and their boards, we can provide consistent leadership training across the ministry.  We pulled from Europe Region’s ATC (Annual Training Conference) positional training and what we loved about training within Traveling Training, added a few more focus areas such as learning how to minister to those we serve as lay ministry leaders and addressing specific leadership challenge areas and then came up with the new W.I.L.D. Weekend events.  Regional presidents still have the ability to encourage, mentor and update their local leadership through the W.I.L.D. Weekend event, as they are the official host for this training.

We know that this is just the beginning of the new W.I.L.D. training model, which will be fine-tuned and changed over the years as leadership needs arise.

To be continued…

Part Two
Part Three

Posted by Brenda Marlin at 8:21 am Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome PWOCI Bloggers

News & Announcements, President's Pen
May 112009

brendamarlin_apr09_webWelcome PWOCI Bloggers!

We are so excited to bring this new communications tool directly to you.  This is another one of our new additions to this ministry.  We want to be able to minister to you through the PWOCI blog.  You will find a variety of blog writers, which will address need-to-know information at various levels of the ministry, such as the international board, chaplains, regional boards, etc.  This will give you the chance to get to know us from a different perspective, we are looking forward to hearing back from you as well.  May the Lord meet all of your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

In His Amazing Love,  Brenda

Posted by Brenda Marlin at 2:00 am Tagged with: ,
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