Southern California Celebrates its 20th Women’s Enrichment Weekend
After a pause of over two years due to COVID, the Orange County congregation celebrated its 20th Women’s Enrichment Weekend on May 20-22, 2022, at the Embassy Suites in Santa Ana. The spirit was upbeat and positive for the 76 ladies in attendance. The theme “Looking Back—Moving Forward” was appropriate as the ladies wove experiences and memories from past Women’s Weekends and life in general together with moving forward in our Christian walk.
Some arrived Friday evening and settled in to relax and get together with friends. Our Women’s Weekend officially began Sabbath morning with church services and two split sermons. Robin Webber shared lessons from the attitude and example of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mario Seiglie focused on what we can learn from the biblical example of Esther. Between the split sermons we enjoyed inspiring special music selections (vocal solos by Laura Wallauch and Sue Crow, and a nine-member Women’s Ensemble).
The theme was expanded in Sabbath afternoon presentations. After the welcoming comments by Caty Seiglie, LeeAnn Luker, who was not able to attend in person, shared a prerecorded video that showed how these Women’s Weekends began and why. Jean Updegraff followed by sharing how these weekends began in Southern California. Later in the afternoon Sue Black gave us a perspective of time in her presentation “Time Warp.” Karen Efthyvoulos led an interactive discussion with the purpose of us getting out of our comfort zones. After a delicious catered meal, the rest of the evening was free for purchasing raffle items and fellowshipping.
On Sunday morning, three ladies (Meredith Bragasin, Beverly Butler and Hiromi Mirigian) shared valuable lessons learned in their lives. An interactive discussion followed, led by Cindy Neumann focusing on the “tears and cheers” of some of the ladies in the Bible.
On Sunday afternoon Suzanne Miller gave the presentation that Dianne Clark had prepared on lessons from climbing mountains. Dianne wasn’t able to attend, but this was an excellent closing message as we can look back and appreciate how far we have come as we also look forward. Anna Moore presented the closing comments. This year we had two moderators who brought a wonderful dose of humor to the weekend: Coleen Moriarty for Saturday and Sylvia Kennedy for Sunday.
As an added plus, this year we again had a fundraiser raffle. With the raffle proceeds and direct donations, we were able to raise $2,025 to help fund a first-ever women’s weekend in Mexico City. As well, many of our ladies took home some very nifty gifts from the raffle.
The ladies left the weekend uplifted and thankful to be able to be together again and ready to move forward in our Christian lives.
