Women's Ministry in Vladivostok

Sometimes it seems that the church is too interested in the question of what is appropriate for women to do in the church and what is not appropriate (e.g., the type of clothing that is worn, wearing a scarf or not, whether or not women can preach in the church). Even in the Lutheran church where we officially recognize the equality of men and women to serve at the altar and where wearing a scarf is not required, all the same people discuss and make judgements that, sometimes, even go so far as to humiliate a woman – a sister in Christ.
  Women are freely offered all sorts of work – from washing floors to working with kids in Sunday school, from preparing snacks to taking care of the homebound. This work is familiar to every woman and women do it well. But can any woman listen to a brother or sister who is weighed down with sin and bring them comfort, praying together with them and saying “The Lord loves you. He takes on your sin, you are forgiven through the blood of Christ. He died for you?” If there is such a woman in a congregation, this is a gift from the Lord! It's not very helpful at that moment to hurriedly quote Paul's Letter to the Corinthians where he speaks about scarfs and haircuts (the latter not only for women, by the way).
Women are happy to lovingly prepare feasts, to take care of children and to help the sick. But if God gave her the gift to preach the Good News and to teachs, it is not good to “close” her mouth and say that you are forbidden to do that. Why do we trust women to raise our children in faith, but we don't allow them to speak from the pulpit? It seems that it is a larger responsibility to work with children, who are vulnerable and sincerely trust the adults that work with them.
  These and other questions interested me and I wanted to speak about them with my sisters in order to support them, to raise their self-esteem and their importance – in fact, sometimes their indispensability in the congregation. I suggested that they lead “women's ministry meetings” and on Sunday after worship the women of St. Paul's Lutheran gathered for fellowship in our comfortable ship cabin (that is what we call the balcony in the kirche). It wasn't very difficult to find a theme for our meeting: “Church (Lutheran) holidays.”
  The women were interested in hearing about the church calendar, about the holidays of the church year, about the decorating of the church during those times as well as food and other traditions. There weren't many of us, but they listened attentively to what I had to say and added their own contributions, especially when we spoke about traditions and special foods.
We closed our meeting by drinking tea together; instead of traditional cookies, we ate a snack from the German-Russian tradition – krebel. Those who knew the recipe shared with those who wanted to know how to make them themselves. 
  The time went spent together went by quickly, and as we parted we agreed to “get together more frequently.” We do, after all, have lots of things to think about and discuss!
I am thankful to God  that he has given me the courage to work with women and strengthens me in this ministry! I am thankful to my sisters who came to the meeting and gave me support!
Nina Dmitrieva