The first two annual events that we held were "retreats" that we held at a local hotel. We decided to shuffle things up a bit this year with a one day seminar that would be totally free to everyone who wanted to attend. We held the event in our own church building and we kept the costs down low overall.

We started out with the topic of Adversity. Then that naturally became Overcoming Adversity. Very early in on Kelly got the vision to borrow a theme from the Mission Impossible television shows and more recent movies. So many view Adversity as impossible to overcome! We had a lot of fun with the theme.

We enlisted a young man with video skills and an older man with acting skills to make us a special promotional video. The elder acted as the head of a top secret organization, inviting women to a special training opportunity. The Mission Impossible theme music and a "self destruct" ending made the video exciting! They also made another video that we used as an opening to our event.

Using media in ministry is very huge these days, and we are blessed that as a relatively small church, we have been able to use media to add sparkle and interest to our events.

We put together an attractive booklet with our seminar schedule, information about speakers and topics along with space for taking notes and some fun quotes about adversity. This booklet was our only handout.

We had a delicious continental breakfast at 8:30am. We served fresh donuts, rolls and muffins; fresh fruit and a tropical fruit salad; a variety of flavored juices and fresh hot coffee. We used a new table set up with silk flowers in our fellowship area to add to the flair of the event. Our total cost with the breakfast was just under $100.00.

We were incredibly blessed this year to have a full praise & worship team for our opening session. This was a step up from previous year's when our worship leader was accompanied by just a piano. The music was wonderful!

Our first message was "Always Advancing" with Kelly McCausey. Kelly laid out the ground work for the day, reminding all of the women that we do have a mission here on earth: to have a ever deepening relationship with God and to reach others for Christ. She shared on the importance of always moving forward in our Christian lives. She gave us several easy to understand and apply "rules for mission operatives" that will keep us advancing through it all!

We had a break and then enjoyed special music from Stephanie Charboneau who sang "Come unto me" (Nicole C. Mullens) Our second session was "Surviving the Mission" with Sandra Jensen. Sandra gave us encouragement and practical advice about surviving adversity in our daily lives. Using a visual object lesson, she reminded us that we are out to change our world - not to be changed by it.

We broke for lunch "on our own" and returned for beautiful acoustic worship music and our final message: "The Secret Weapon" with Pastor Julie O'Dell. Most women were probably expecting a teaching on spiritual warfare, rebuking demons and such. If they were, they were definitely surprised to find out that the secret weapon is - Love.

Pastor Julie gave us a powerful teaching on the importance of responding in love and with forgiveness with adversity come to us in the form of other people.

The women who attended the seminar were blessed. The feedback that we have received has been great. We had fun with it, that much is for sure!