“Tune
Our Hearts: Praying & Singing with the Psalms” - A Wrap Up!
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pictures
On June 24, 2005 about
179 women gathered at Bowling Green State University to attend the Synod
Gathering. As usual, the weather was hot, as usual the plenary session
meeting room was cold, but the warm hearts of the women (and a couple of
men) made this year’s event a special three day experience.
Our keynote speaker,
Carol Bechtel, did her usual fine job of bringing the Psalms alive in a
musical (she sang and played the harp) and logical manner. Some of the
comments from the evaluations included: Just loved her. She’s a fine
teacher, organized in her thoughts, knowledgeable, a good delivery style, a
sense of humor. Just excellent! Terrific – just loved how she added the
music. Top notch. Thanks you for having her. I will be reading Psalms in
a different way. Outstanding. Held my attention totally. And we could go
on and on.
Toby Gillespie-Mobley,
our worship and music leader, along with her Praise Team brought a different
kind of music to our singing after meals and to our worship service on
Sunday morning. Wonderful! Excellent song leader. What a live wire she
is! I’m an elder of European descent working at being more multi-cultural.
She helps. Are you sure she is Presbyterian? Very good! Very energetic and
lively – a good model for energy and discipleship. The way she incorporated
her dance workshop members with the music in the final worship service was
very moving.
About one-third of the
participants attended Sing We All Noel -- Celebrating Christmas Morning
devotions on Saturday and Sunday morning (pretty impressive since they began
at 7:00 a.m.) led by Ruth Cooper. Enthusiastic creative -- a great way to
start the day! Fantastic. Christmas will not be the same for me. What a
great job she did. What a forever joy!!! Creative and thought provoking.
Special thanks to
Justice for Women for enabling Mary Kuhns to be a part of our gathering.
Mary was our counselor in residence and she was busy during the weekend
meeting with and helping those participants who had brought along a little
extra baggage in various forms. Her calm clear insights were a gift to
many.
Yea, I Have a Goodly
Heritage, a presentation on Fanny Crosby who was one of America’s most
prolific song writers having written thousands of hymns in spite of the fact
that she was blind at the age of 6 week, was a spell binding experience.
Patsy Gaines, the new Moderator of Presbyterian Women of the Synod, did an
excellent job of portraying this inspiring lady in costume and manner. She
even looked blind!
There was not one
negative comment concerning any of the workshops. What a tribute to the
fine leadership of Presbyterian Women. One of the serendipity moments came
with a Trip to a Nearby Mosque. A shuttle bus took about 45 participants to
the Mosque where they not only learned about the Mosque from some wonderful
teachers, but also got to experience a wedding and were even invited to take
pictures and talk to the bride and groom.
Many thanks to all the
Presbyterian Women who helped to put this event together, to all the
workshop leaders who freely gave their time and talents to help us learn, to
all those Presbyterian Women in attendance who took on responsibilities
during the gathering itself (introducing speakers and being present as
“helpers” in various workshops), and to all the attendees who came and
shared themselves and learned from one another. What a fun and worthwhile
experience!
Don’t forget to mark
your calendar NOW for July 7-11, 2006 in Louisville, Kentucky for Creation!
Celebration! God’s Word – Light for the Journey the Churchwide Gathering
next year! Always a special event in the life of Presbyterian Women.
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Click here for a summary of the
workshops!
