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On any given Saturday this fall, you're likely to find an energetic group of women hiking on a beautiful desert trail through Arizona's Superstition Mountains. Or discussing an intriguing book at Starbucks in nearby Phoenix as they sip their lattés. Or touring a museum together, sewing quilts, watching movies, or playing a serious game of Cranium.
All these activities are arranged through an innovative women's ministry called Girlfriends Unlimited!—an Arizona organization that's changing the way one church is connecting women and encouraging them in their faith.
Groups such as the Cuisine Queens, who visit gourmet restaurants together, or the Sassy Scrappers, who meet regularly to chat while putting photos in their scrapbooks, are the creation of two suburban Phoenix women who three years ago were determined to come up with a nonthreatening way to help women make friends and grow spiritually. "We live in a society where a lot of women go to work, drive home, pop in the garage, and call it quits for the day," says Girlfriends cofounder Patty Wyatt, 40, who worked 12 years for the airline industry before heading this new ministry. "Women need to connect with others. But most either have been hurt or disappointed with past friendships or are too busy with their families to think they have time for a girlfriend."
"And if they do attend a women's ministry event," adds the other founder, Lisa Jernigan, 45, "most women expect to sit and wait for a teacher to speak to them."
Lisa should know. She's the wife of the pastor at Central Christian Church of the East Valley in Mesa, Arizona, which now headquarters Girlfriends Unlimited! "We see it all the time—it's the 'I'm going to church and you're going to entertain me' mentality," Lisa says. "We wanted to get away from that and come up with events where women could interact with each other, feel safe, relax, and connect."
A Vision Is BornThe vision for such events surfaced after Patty and Lisa met and discovered they'd both recently lost their mothers. Lisa's mom died from a rare form of liver cancer in 1998. Then, in the spring of 2000, Patty underwent a tragic loss after her 69-year-old mother, Nila Lynn, was murdered in broad daylight at a mass shooting that occurred in Peoria, Arizona, on the afternoon of April 19.
Convicted murderer Richard Glassel, now 62, entered a homeowners association meeting of 35 people where Patty's parents were in attendance. Glassel, a disgruntled former member of the association, burst into the meeting and shot five people before he could be stopped.
Two of these victims were killed, including Patty's mom. It was a horrific ordeal for Patty and her family to endure. Along with the media attention they received, the family also had to watch a lengthy trial unfold. Closure finally came in February 2003, when Glassel was sentenced to death.
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