By Joni Wilkinson, Iowa WMU Coordinator,
Members of Iowa Woman’s Missionary Union met for their annual meeting on Friday afternoon, April 10, 2015, at the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines, Iowa. They honored Wilma Faulkner for four years of service as WMU President and presented her with a glass globe of the world on a stand featuring the Iowa WMU Logo, BCI Logo, and her years of service.
Joni Wilkinson recognizing Wilma Faulkner for her four years of service to Iowa WMU.
They elected new officers for 2015. They are President Karen McGettrick, Living Hope Community Church, Des Moines, First Vice President Wilma Faulkner, Calvary Baptist Church, Glenwood, Recording Secretary Bobbie Thies, Corner Stone Baptist Church, Altoona, and Historian Nancy Glaser, Calvary Baptist Church, Glenwood.
This year WMU took the first step in revising the group’s guidelines to allow for broader representation on their leadership council based on current organization of churches in the state, and to reflect WMU’s relationship to leadership at the Baptist Convention of Iowa. These guidelines need to be reviewed and approved at the next Executive Board Meeting of Baptist Convention of Iowa in May.
Plans for Iowa WMU in 2015 include visiting WMU’s to encourage them as they support missions and ministry in their local community, connecting local churches with specific International Missions Board and North American Missions Board missionaries, and fellowshipping with IMB missionary parents who live in Iowa. WMU is also providing travel for a daughter of one of our Iowa IMB missionaries to attend the MK (Missionary Kid) Reentry Retreat this summer. She is coming back to the states to begin college this fall.
Several WMU members stayed to attend the ONE Conference for women that was held Friday evening through Sunday morning at the Sheraton. They served as members of the prayer team providing prayer support for the event and being available to pray with anyone requesting prayer. On Saturday afternoon they hosted a missions project where participants knitted or crocheted dish clothes and scrubbies to be donated to the Free Store, a nonprofit ministry in Des Moines. The Free Store provides household items and furniture to women when they leave the Children & Families of Iowa’s Domestic Violence services and veterans setting up a new household. It will also provide these same items to needy families from other social agencies for a nominal fee.
Anyone interested in contacting Iowa WMU may email Joni Wilkinson, WMU Coordinator at iowawmu@gmail.com, or call 515-979-5414.
