{"id":4397,"date":"2025-03-17T10:55:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/?p=4397"},"modified":"2025-04-01T09:36:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T14:36:27","slug":"4397","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/2025\/03\/17\/4397\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unexpected Calling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1dc41c298252143f12284ad65d061ee5 wp-block-paragraph\">Anne Presteng, our first vice president, often taught us music during WMF day, and I\u2019ve personally loved coming home from WMF day with a new song in my heart. I\u2019ve appreciated her input and service during our board meetings, and once I became president last year I understood her role more clearly, especially in rewriting the job descriptions for us as well as her work in organizing the Nominating Committee each year. She is sharing her heart with you in this article. Thank you Anne for giving of your time and talents, serving the Lord through the WMF national board the last six years! &#8211; Karen Pederson, National WMF President&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-fad3a23e8980b4fbeb7958d1c6c91741 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>&#8220;Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters\u2026it is the Lord you are serving.&#8221; Colossians 3:23-24<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-93964fc183c924b3d6522d801bb52729 wp-block-paragraph\">Is God calling you to serve Him as part of the WMF? Six years ago I had just retired and was asking the Lord,&nbsp;&#8220;What now?&#8221;&nbsp;That very week I received a letter from Faith Nelson on behalf of the National WMF nominating committee asking if I would consider serving as 1st Vice President for the National WMF.&nbsp;&nbsp;My initial response was, &#8220;How could I possibly be qualified to do this?&#8221;&nbsp;The timing of the &#8220;what now?&#8221; question I posed to the Lord made it clear to me that God\u2019s hand was in this call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-88171d6824c91856ac0d432e62ede8be wp-block-paragraph\">So for the past six years I have served as first vice president to the WMF. My final term will end this year at the annual conference.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-66d92ba54c9711bf1799788618719101 wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Pederson (our president) asked me to share a little about the board and my role as First Vice President. This&nbsp;request made me think of the recent&nbsp;government email request to their employees asking them to list five things they had accomplished the previous week.&nbsp;I wondered, &#8220;what five things could I share about the role of the the 1st VP for National WMF?&#8221; Although the time spans six years (not one week), here are five things I have done in this role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4402\" style=\"width:619px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-100x75.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-846x635.jpg 846w, https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1890-1184x888.jpg 1184w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c27e6f6d1f785112a02c51d9d4388320 wp-block-paragraph\"><em>1. Support and assist the president. <\/em>In my first year our then president Lavonne West was unable to attend our convention due to a family emergency.&nbsp;&nbsp;Her role became my role\u2026 I found myself speaking a bit at conference and running the business meeting (hello, Roberts Rules of Order!).&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-bce23ff4c7754efd644cd2808c2b8c3e wp-block-paragraph\"><em>2 . Help the president in any delegated duties.<\/em> Such as writing this article!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4b4b6fcc38fb4b811c3df1eea151ac99 wp-block-paragraph\"><em>3.&nbsp;&nbsp;Encourage district presidents. <\/em>This encouragement included a phone call, card or care package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1aaa92c3ba6106f593074a5870612673 wp-block-paragraph\"><em>4.&nbsp;&nbsp;Visit and share at district meetings. <\/em>Karen Floan and I are looking forward to sharing with the Stillwater ladies in Montana at the end of April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f65378dd0a42e5a4047d88ff60f5dc0f wp-block-paragraph\"><em>5. Find&nbsp;and assist women to serve on the Nominating committee for National WMF officers.<\/em>&nbsp;&nbsp;This year we have a wonderful Nominating Committee in Cheryl Aakre, Carla Bjorgaard and Joyce Erickson. These dear ladies are prayerfully reaching out and asking women to consider serving on our National Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6b9974815b8648112f43f3a345274bff wp-block-paragraph\">The National WMF board consists of five additional members plus our Executive Secretary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-7b9a675a51b4f910a1f881a6007eb501 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>President (Karen Pederson)&nbsp;<\/strong>conducts our meetings, formulates agendas and leads WMF day. She also writes for publications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-99818207c647714184af8c66010a9783 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Second VP&nbsp;(Liz McCarlson)&nbsp;<\/strong>maintains&nbsp;our missionary contacts and works with the resolutions committee.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-f0514f14bd58021d723d6918f331d8cf wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Recording Secretary&nbsp;(Karen Floan)&nbsp;<\/strong>takes our minutes and keeps our records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-83d0bc749e2cfaa46334d510ec36a005 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Communications Secretary (Linda Fugleberg)<\/strong>&nbsp;coordinates the national convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c632fed8366aadac9884ecf5d1dfcbd2 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Treasurer (Margie Lee)&nbsp;<\/strong>receives contributions, pays bills, prepares budgets and financial updates.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5360008061ded8ae7b0fb3c83c284df9 wp-block-paragraph\">These delightful women do far more than the brief description above.&nbsp;&nbsp;They, along with our executive secretary (Jenn Thorson), meet monthly to keep our board on track with missionary&nbsp;and project goals, bible study preparations, printings and planning for the National Convention.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3eab7281f0c4c4b86bcc95bb7f43c75a wp-block-paragraph\">Our convention theme verse this year is John 8:12, &#8220;I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.&#8221; As we gather at the ARC, one of our greatest blessings will be hearing from ladies across the country. We serve a great God and He is working and blessing!&nbsp;Let\u2019s keep encouraging each other&nbsp;to keep our eyes focused on Jesus as we follow him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anne Presteng, our first vice president, often taught us music during WMF day, and I\u2019ve personally loved coming home from WMF day with a new song in my heart. I\u2019ve appreciated her input and service during our board meetings, and once I became president last year I understood her role more clearly, especially in rewriting the job descriptions for us &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/2025\/03\/17\/4397\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aflc.org\/women\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}