WILD » PWOC International Blog

W.I.L.D. Training Anyone?

Mar 212012

Greetings from your Leadership Development Team!

We have been busy, busy, busy, preparing for the upcoming W.I.L.D. training season. This is always a great time of year for our team as we seek God’s guidance, sort through evaluations and coordinate with Regional leadership in order to equip the next group of local PWOC leaders with the most effective and relevant training possible. This is certainly a team effort. In addition to the team of trainers, there are also many women working behind the scenes to bring dynamic weekends of training to your regions.

Did you know the W.I.L.D. training curriculum is written, edited, test run and formatted by local PWOC members throughout the world? God has filled our body with amazingly gifted and talented individuals who sacrifice their time and energy as they pour wisdom, knowledge and experience into the training material. The teamwork does not stop there. Team members also work with a local print shop to ensure the curriculum is printed correctly and then distributed to each region. In addition, there is a team of women in each region working to ensure all the details for the training weekend are set into place.

A benefit of having a team pulled straight from the PWOC body is that each of these women is committed to prayer! They pray over what is written, what is printed, even the shipment of the curriculum to the regions. Isn’t that wonderful?! Every aspect of our Regional W.I.L.D. Weekends is laboriously prayed over every step of the way as we seek to equip and encourage local leadership according to God’s plan. As additional work continues to be done to organize and carry out the Regional W.I.L.D. weekends, all details are being prayerfully set into place: dates, locations, training teams, schedules, even the food that will be offered is put to prayer.

Now, we ask you to join us! Listed below are the training dates for all nine regions. Please join us in prayer over these dates, details and the local leadership that will be in attendance. You can find additional information on the “W.I.L.D. Weekends” page under “Training” at PWOC.org.

W.I.L.D. Dates and Locations by Region

Alaska – May 4-6 @ Eielson AFB, AK

Europe – May 17-20 @ Edelweiss Resort & Lodge, Garmisch, Germany

Pacific – June 8-10 @ Pu’u Kahea Conference Center, Waianae HI

Central – June 8-10 @ Ft Leavenworth, KS

Korea – June 15-17 @ Religious Retreat Center (RCC), Seoul, Korea

Japan – June 22-24 @ TBD

Southeast – June29-July 1 @ Pinnacle Retreat Center, Clayton, GA

Northeast – July 6-8 @ Ft Belvoir, VA

West – July 20-22 @ TBD

W.I.L.D. Trainer Applications

Leadership Development, News & Announcements

Jan 222011

Calling all trainers!

The 2011 W.I.L.D. Trainer Application is available for download in the Training section of pwoc.org or grab it here!

Application submission deadline is NLT February 11, 2011!

For questions, contact the Leadership Development team at LeadershipDevelopment@pwoc.org.

What does W.I.L.D. Training have to do with VBS?

Bits & Pieces

Jun 162009

This year I became a PWOC Trainer for the first time and have had a blast meeting women in our local installations and getting to know them on a personal level. The curriculum is so incredibly well written that the trainer has little to do but keep time when the ladies get so involved in the discussion that time becomes irrelevant. In fact, I use my iPhone’s alarm clock feature and found that PWOC women do not respond to the harp! I had to choose the more annoying digital sound that works much better. No kidding.

So what does WILD training have to do with VBS? WILD training reminds us that we are individually and beautifully made by God for His purpose. Eph. 2:10 tells us, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (NIV) The commentary in the Life Application Bible adds this, “...If God considers us his works of art, we dare not treat ourselves or others with disrespect or as inferior work.” Powerful words. WILD training reminds us that we can have freedom in being simply who we are, and not who we are NOT.

There are certain tasks in PWOC that when mentioned, you know right away who’s name gets attached. The opposite is true, as well, and let me just say that my name is never the one called out for watchcare! Having said that, volunteering for Vacation Bible School has always ranked right up there at the, well, bottom of my list! I’d rather pick up trash along the highway. Sad, but true.

Okay, so this year I have a new lease on life and permission to be the computer geek that I am so when the volunteer call went out for VBS, I stepped forward. Did you know that VBS has administrative duties, as well? In fact, today I used Mail Merge to create and print the Certificates of Appreciation for all of the other volunteers that were running in from the rain with 200+ kids. I stayed dry, of course, eating excess snack bags of pretzels, mini marshmallows, raisins and skittles. Too much of that, by the way, can make you sick. Dry, but sick.

Tomorrow will be Day Three of Fort Bragg’s VBS and I’m excited to be involved. There’s plenty to keep me busy doing my ‘geek’ thing and no one has asked me to lead a round of This Little Light of Mine. God is Good!