Metro East American Heritage Girls . . . Join Us!

American Heritage Girls is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the mission of building women of integrity through service to God, family, community and country. The organization offers badge programs, service projects, girl leadership opportunities, and outdoor experiences to its members. It serves as a catalyst for building young women of integrity and faith. It also broadens girls' social development through extra-curricular activities. This program of character building has successfully served thousands of girls since its inception and will continue to do so long into the 21st century.

For the past year, a group of hardworking moms and excited daughters have been meeting as an informal AHG group to see if there were any interest outside of our families for an organization of this kind. Troy United Methodist was so kind to allow us to meet monthly at church where we had over 60 girls attend our first gathering! The interest is definitely out there for families to have a Christ centered service-oriented organization for our daughters. We have had the privilege to serve homemade dinner that the girls prepared to those in need at a homeless shelter in Granite City, packed and sent out over 100 shoeboxes stuffed with goodies for Operation Christmas Child, had a great time camping this past summer, participated in a walk for unborn babies with Mosaic Crisis Pregnancy Center, walked in the Veterans Day parade and much more!

We are so proud to announce that after months of paperwork and hours of meetings Metro East American Heritage Girls troop IL2911 is now formally established! Troy United Methodist Church has agreed to be our charter organization, and we are very excited to see where God takes this partnership! I had the honor of naming the troop IL2911 after my favorite bible verse Jeremiah 29:11 which reads:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

It is our prayer that AHG troop IL2911 becomes a place where our daughters can investigate their relationship with Jesus Christ, where they can discover God’s will for their lives and where they can develop the heart, hands and feet of the gospel all while building relationships with each other and our community.

We would love for your daughters, granddaughters, neighbors or any other girls God might bring to your heart to come and experience this fantastic group of young ladies for themselves. Our membership is enrolling now from Kindergarten through 12^th grade! We would love for you to become part of the Metro East AHG IL2911 family!

Please contact Aimee Folmer at 618-659-3400 or Heather Budwell at 314-363-6011 for more information. Like us on Facebook at Metro East American Heritage Girls (IL)

By Heather Budwell

Tested by Fire

Kelley Latta, Heather Budwell, and Juliet Sharrow

 

Tonight I had the best night! It was a God night. Ever have one of those? A time when you know without a shadow of a doubt that God ordained every detail of the event? Well, my God moment started a few months ago when I received a message via Facebook from an old high school friend whom I haven’t seen in over twenty years. I attended high school in Pennsylvania and haven’t returned since graduating in 1991. Thanks to social media I have had the opportunity to re-connect with several people from the past that I have not had the opportunity to see in many, many years.

My girlfriend, Juliet Sharrow, messaged me and excitedly informed me that she and her friend would be traveling to Saint Louis this summer to attend a conference downtown and wanted to know if I lived close enough to the city to have a reunion. I was ecstatic to think of seeing my friend again and yet fearful at the same time that it probably wouldn’t work out due to the busyness of life and schedules not coordinating and…well…kids! The months passed, the day arrived, and the schedules coordinated; the husband arrived home on time from work to watch the kids, and the reunion commenced! It was a wonderful evening of indulging on delicious gourmet tapas, fine wine and great conversation.

My girlfriend and her friend were in town attending the International Christian Retail Show. Juliet’s friend, Kelley Latta, is a dynamic Christian speaker, author and motivator to women all over the world (thanks to the Internet). I never knew Kelley during high school because she is from New Hampshire, but I did know her husband, Steve, and felt an instant connection to her as soon as I met her.

After sharing the stories of our lives and families, I realized they would make a great team to interview for RUBY! Here is what I discovered about their ministry and want to share with you.

Juliet Sharrow and Kelley Latta

 

Tell me about yourself, Kelley, and your ministry.

• I live in Hanover, PA, with my husband, Steve, and our two teenage sons. My husband owns the local Ford dealership, and I was a stay-at-home soccer mom until I followed the Lord into ministry. I grew up in a Christian home and asked Jesus to be my Savior around the age of six. I had a very loving family who loved the Lord and each other, but I grew up frustrated in my Christianity, wondering why I didn’t experience any of the promises I heard about in God’s Word. After my husband and I had our first child, I was participating in a small group Bible study where God posed a question through the author, “Do you love Jesus?” I started to answer, “Yes,” without even thinking. I knew the right answer: of course! But at that moment the conviction of the Holy Spirit fell over me, and I saw what He saw. I didn’t love Him. I had been a pretender, living a lie. Through my entire life, I had not really known the Lord at all. I had Him in my head, but not in my heart. I could recite many bible verses, had the best church answer to any question, could hold my own in a religious debate, but I had never really encountered the Son of God. With a trembling hand, I confessed to the Lord, “No, I do not love you…but I want to.” Then I discovered the truth of John 5:39-40: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

As I pursued Jesus through His Word, Scripture began to come alive, and I began to change. I finally experienced the promises of Scripture coming forth in my life, and God began to stir a passion in my heart for His church. I remember returning to church and looking at the all people in the pews around me, and my heart broke for them to the point of tears thinking that they may be in the same boat I had been. Were they, too, missing the most precious relationship created because they were striving so hard to participate in religion? Were they as lost as I had been? I had been guilty of Matthew 15:8, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,” and I was fearful they were living the same way. It is my passion to encourage people to press in for God’s best. Don’t settle for allowing Jesus to remain a distant God who deserves worship, but is not known. Knowing Him is EVERYTHING.

• How did your ministry develop?

My family attends Hanover First Church of God where my husband and I are both in leadership roles. I began by leading a Bible study in my home, and then I started helping out in women’s ministry. Soon I was teaching a ladies’ Sunday school class and speaking at some retreats and events. Through a God appointment, I was asked to speak at a new Christian woman’s conference in Florida. I had written a Bible study for our woman’s ministry team to go through together that was intended to deepen our faith individually and as a team and lead us into God’s plan. I felt God leading me to print the study to take to the conference to offer the attendees as a follow-up to what they learned that would keep them in the Word. That is where my book, Tested by Fire, was first released. It was God ordained and appointed. It was not my intention for this Bible study to go beyond our ministry team, but God had other plans.

• What is your vision for the future of your ministry?

God has proven to go beyond our wildest dreams with this ministry. At this point, we are self-published. I guess the next step is to see if it is God’s will for the book to be picked up by a publisher. That is one of the main reasons we have traveled to Saint Louis to this convention. We are getting great exposure to many publishers and distributors. The feedback from our booth and book has been fantastic. We are just waiting on the Lord for our next step.

• What is your role in the ministry, Juliet?

My role is to be Kelley’s right-hand woman and her traveling companion. I attend all her speaking engagements and help set up the booth, sell books, help with the ministry blog, bookkeep, and set speaking appointments. We are a great team. I have a story of God’s grace and redemption over my life as well and God has opened the doors for me to share my story at a woman’s conference where Kelley was speaking this past year. I know this is God’s plan for my life, and I look forward to seeing where He is taking us and the lives that will be changed for His glory though this ministry.

• How can we learn more about your ministry?

You can visit our website  Kelley Latta Ministries for information on speaking topics and events. There you can also receive weekly encouragement from my teaching blog, Kelley’s Word on Wednesday, or purchase the Bible study, Tested by Fire, and our prayer journal/devotional book, Conversations with God, from our on-line store. You can also enter your email address to receive updates directly from our ministry. We will soon be launching a free online Bible study of Tested by Fire, and you can register to participate there as well. We believe God is calling us to bring His people back to Him. It is our prayer that you all would join us in this calling though participating in the Bible study and joining us in prayer.

 

Heather Budwell

Packing Away the Past

Currently our home looks like a tornado knocked on the front door and spun around in every room leaving only mass chaos in its path. We are in the process of packing for a move coming up in just a few short…very short days. Although, having moved 6 times in our 12 year marriage, this is the first move where I was not completely consumed with caring for very small children and felt I had the opportunity to not only start months ahead, but to take the opportunity to open all the boxes that have traveled with us through the years and have yet to be opened and to purge, purge, purge. I really wanted to do this move right, do it organized, do it as stress-free as possible. Having all my kids in school full-time has made a huge difference in the process already, but with the flu arriving at our house and deciding it really likes it here and staying on and off for the past few months and having two snow days this week leading into a long weekend, it has felt a bit like I do have little ones at home again.

During the process of opening up these long-term parked boxes, rummaging through their contents and deciding what is trash, what gets donated and what gets packed, I realized I was moving at an incredibly slow pace. What I had envisioned as being a freeing and fun process directing me down the path of super organized she-woman was turning me more into a woman painfully trying to crawl through the sludge and pain of my past, a past staring back at me for the first time in years. It was released from its sleeping chambers, gasped breaths of fresh air and without hesitation pulled me into at moments paralyzing and painful flashbacks of the past. Seeing pictures of old friends who weren’t such a great influence in my life or finding love letters written by past relationships that should have been destroyed years ago all reached their long boney fingers up from their boxed graves and tried to pull me down to the depths of darkness and sin in my past. It was as if I could feel the shackles tighten around my wrists, and I could feel the weight of condemnation and despair flood my soul.

Just as quick as the darkness of my sinful past tried to cover my spirit and breath death into my heart, the light that burns inside of my soul spoke out with an even louder voice of truth. I heard as clear as day a voice say to me with strength and certainty “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"  2 Corinthians 5:17.  Such comforting words during this time. I felt my soul cry out “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me,” Psalm 51:10.

Joy filled my soul like water filling a bathtub. I once again had strength that only comes from Christ to keep the past in my rearview mirror and to look with great anticipation and hope to the future. The words of Jeremiah 29:11 whispered ever so sweetly in to my heart, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We know without a doubt that this upcoming move is a gift from God and is His way of preparing a future for our family that we could not have even imagined only four years ago when we were homeless and surviving off of generous gifts from loved ones and government financial support while my husband was desperately searching for a job to support our family. Our present and future looked like nothing but a long, cold hike down the path of uncertainty and suffering. Not a great place to be with a one-year-old, a three-year-old and a five- year-old in tow. Feelings of helplessness and anger were pervasive. As He always is, though, God was moving even then. We were focusing on the challenges of the moment and were finding it extremely difficult to turn our eyes up to heaven. As He promised though, He was preparing a healing path for us to take that would restore our souls.

When God is moving, Satan uses his elite forces to distract, confuse, depress and lead astray God’s chosen children. I also know without a doubt that there is a war raging every day for our souls. We are distracted by our business, we are confused by relational conflict or our current circumstances, we fall deep into depression and our eyes fall from looking up to the King of Glory to focusing on haunting memories of our past or the place of suffering we are journeying through today. It is important to remember that there is a war going on right now for your soul. Ephesians 6:12-13 tell us “For our struggle is onto against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” The apostle Paul then tells us how to put on our spiritual armor of God in order to defend our souls from the enemy. Read Ephesians 6:13-20 to hear his instructions.

When is the last time you allowed distraction or business to create a hole in your armor for the enemy's poisoned arrow to lance your soul? When is the last time you took time to quiet the noise of life in your head and heart and to abide with the lover of your soul?

My encouragement to you is even amongst the business of moving through life, never knowing what the next box life has for you to open, but living and moving by faith that you would grasp ahold tightly to God’s word. That you would carve out time in your busy day to abide with Him, even if only for a few minutes. That you would fill your heart with His promises and that you would navigate your life with purpose and fervor towards your new identity in Christ.

May you fight the good fight.

Heather Budwell

Connect with Heather Budwell

1.  How long have you attended Troy UMC?
Our family has been attending TUMC for almost two years now.  Our children, Jackson(8), Livia(7) and Austin(5), have attended Vacation Bible School for several years now. 

2.  What drew you to this church?
Our good friends, the Rodericks, invited us to visit their church family.  David Roderick was super excited about a new children's ministry curriculum that he was getting ready to launch and thought we would really like it.   My husband, Rich, has been in full-time ministry most of his adult life and has served as worship leader, children's ministry director, family pastor and lead pastor over the years, and although we are currently not in full-time ministry (he currently sells Medicare supplement insurance with Essence Healthcare), we were looking for a church with an excellent children's ministry program.  After learning about the TRU curriculum, we were hooked!  Pastor Dennis and his staff were extremely welcoming and have made us all feel right at home here at TUMC. 

3.  Which service do you typically attend?
Our family attends the 9am service where my husband and I rotate on the worship team.  Rich plays drums, guitar and sings, and I like to sing. 

4.  Share some information about yourself others may be surprised to learn.
I have had the wonderful opportunity to be one of the designers on the "Rebuild His House" project.  I have had a fun time picking out brick, tile, carpet, furniture, paint and decorating the Christmas tree.  I have a background in architectural interior design and currently own my own interior design and home staging company called Fresh Home Designs and Staging.  This has been a wonderful way that I can serve the body of Christ with my gifts and talents.

I also serve as the Saint Louis area coordinator for a non-profit organization called The SOLD Project, which raises awareness and works towards prevention of minor sex trafficking in Thailand, domestically and here locally.  I never know child sex trafficking was so prevalent even in Troy, IL, until I became affiliated with this organization.  I was appalled to learn that Saint Louis, MO, is the third largest trafficking hub in the United States.  I host public speaking seminars where I help raise awareness of this horrific crime.  I actually spoke at an evening service at TUMC in 2009 before we started attending.  Speaking out against minor sex trafficking is a passion the Lord gave me when I was a missionary with Youth with A Mission back in 2000.  We lived in Thailand for several months, and this was the first time I had ever experienced sex trafficking in person.  It changed my life.

5.  Share a favorite Bible verse, and why this is a favorite.
One of my favorite bible verses is "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you hope and future. In those days when you pray I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,' says the Lord." Jeremiah 29:11-14.  These verses have brought me hope in time of great suffering.  The Lord's promises are so strong and true in these verses.  Even when I cannot make any sense of my circumstances or pain, I can rest assured that the Lord has full intentions of caring for me and giving me the best life possible here on earth and more importantly is preparing for me an eternal future with Him in His Kingdom.

6.  Tell us about your recent prayer retreat.
A few years ago a friend invited Rich and me to attend a contemplative prayer group called The New Day Monks.  We were not very familiar with contemplative prayer and after attending a few meetings we knew that the Lord was calling us to Himself through this lifestyle.  Similar to the monks, we employ silence, solitude and prayer to help create intimacy with the Lord.  One of the neat things we get to do with this group is attend a silent retreat at The Assumption Abbey in Ava, MO, a few times a year.  I just returned from my most recent silent retreat in November, and it was very powerful.  It always amazes me how very loud the Lord is when you choose so surround yourself with silence and meditation.  When you take the time to quiet your mind and heart, you can see circumstances and situations in your life so much more clearly, and I believe the Lord's instructions on the paths to take are so much louder. 

7.  Tell us about the weekly prayer group in which you belong.
Another neat way the Lord is allowing me to fellowship at this time in my life is I was invited to join with a handful of women that have started an MIT (Moms in Touch) prayer group.  MIT is an international organization that gathers moms to  pray for their children, their schools, their teachers and administrators.  It has been such a powerful time of blessing for us to come together once a week and commit an hour to praying for our children and their schools.  I have felt such a tight bond with these women over a very short period of time because we pour out our hearts to the Lord for our precious children together and give all praise, requests and intercession to Him.  I encourage anyone who might be interested in this prayer group to contact me for more details.  You and your family will feel the peace of his grace through interceding together.  

8.  How may we contact you in order to make a further connection?
I appreciate the opportunity to tell you about my life and my family.  I look forward to deepening my relationship in our church community and learning more about all of you as well!  Please feel free to e-mail me at budgrl777@yahoo.com.