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Iron Rose Sister Ministries / Ministerio Hermana Rosa de Hierro functions as a bilingual ministry serving as a resource to women and women's ministries in English and Spanish.  It is a joy and a blessing to see God's family come together in both languages and provide opportunities for that to happen.

This weekend is one such occasion.  The Northwest Church of Christ in Denver, Colorado, is hosting a ladies' retreat simultaneous in English and Spanish.  We will have the welcome, worship, fellowship times, etc. with all of the women together.  While the English-speaking women are in their main session, the Spanish-speaking women will meet in small groups and then they will switch.  This will allow me to give the teaching directly in each language without the use of a translator or the delay or translation.  It also facilitates the opportunity for growth through small groups in each woman's native language.

One element I am most excited about is the singing.  For at least one song in each session, we will sing a song that exists in both languages.  We will first encourage everyone to sing it in English, then everyone to sing it in Spanish.  Finally, everyone will have the opportunity to sing it in the language of their choice at the same time.  What an awesome God we serve whose family is multi-lingual!  And a God who is big-enough and loving-enough to hear all of it as a fragrant offering to His ears!

Good friends, life-long friends, and true BFFs are hard to come by.  They are a blessing and a treasure.  Even if much time has passed since last seeing each other or a lengthy conversation, you can pick right back up as if it were yesterday.

I have been blessed with a number of those kinds of friends over the years and on Tuesday, I had a fleeting thought that I had been neglectful of those friends lately and had not been doing a good job of keeping in touch.  Wednesday morning, I awakened to messages from three of them who must have been feeling the same sense of absence or lack in our recent communication.  I thank God constantly for those friends.

And one of those three, Katie, is actually coming for a visit this weekend to assist with the first bilingual women's retreat that will be hosted at the Northwest Church of Christ here in Denver.

Katie's and my friendship goes all the way back to college when we sat in classes together and didn't have to pass notes since she was a lefty and me a righty.  She would sit to my right and we would write back and forth on the same piece of paper between us.  We were both Communication Disorder and Spanish majors interested in answering God's call to missions.

Tonight, I will pick up Katie from the airport.  And while today is about Throwback Thursday and I'm thrown back to the three friendships I was able to take a moment to connect with today, I encourage you to bring those friendships into the here and now - to enjoy the past and the memories, but to move forward together into new stages of friendship, new spiritual depth and encouragement.