Shaunti Fledhahn

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 3/23/2007 8:00 AM

This large multi-state conference is the type of event that I have grown to love to do. In this case, 500 women came together from probably a dozen states around the Midwest and elsewhere. We had a wonderful time together on Friday night, all-day Saturday and Sunday morning before parting and going back home.

I was the main speaker for this conference and Kim Bolton was the worship leader and it was just a delightful group of ladies. This is one event that I can say with absolute certainty was covered in prayer from start to finish, and in fact, had been covered in prayer for over a year.

The Illowa Christian Women’s Groups takes prayer very seriously which is wonderful to see. Every few weeks in the month leading up to the event, I would get a little note, or a card, or an email, or a phone-call from one of the organizers saying that they were looking forward to the conference and that they were on their k ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 3/17/2007 8:00 AM

This weekend, I unexpectedly got a delightful surprise. I was looking forward to being up in Bangor, Maine with a great group of women at the this women’s event, however I was feeling very “traveled out”. The major snowstorms that unexpectedly hit the Northeast all the way from Michigan to New York to Maine ended up giving me an unexpected snow day. The event planners felt that it was best to re-schedule the conference because many women had not been able to get to the conference through the two feet of snow that fell.

We ended up re-scheduling the conference for May and I unexpectedly got a snow day and was able to stay at home with my kids. It was a lot of fun and we ended up being able to go do some fun ‘mommy-kid’ things and enjoying a surprise weekend. I was able to join my daughter on her opening day of her key ball season and that was a lot of fun. So, all-in-all, I was very ble ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 3/4/2007 8:00 AM

Wow, I got out to the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs and could hardly talk, the location was so intensely beautiful. The Rocky Mountains swoop down to a mountain lake that is surrounded by multiple beautiful buildings of this luxury hotel. I miss my husband and kids, but I couldn’t resist sending Jeff - and my staff! - an email with the view from my room of the lake and the mountains. Not that I WANT to make them jealous or anything..

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By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/24/2007 8:00 AM

This was the first marriage conference that I had done on my own in a while, and I realized how much I missed having Jeff with me! He is so good at relating to the guys as an “average knucklehead” (his words, not mine!), and really seems to help them ‘get it’ about how simple it can be to truly understand their wives and make them happy.

Although I was missing my husband and kids, I really enjoyed this visit. The pastor, Georg Karl, is an old Michigan guy and had a shrine in his office to the Michigan Wolverines just like Jeff does! Which in Indiana, of course, is NOT very popular.   [LINDA - see if you can get the picture from the event site of me between two of the pastors who were wearing Michigan sweatshirts!] Georg had actually met his wife, Jeanne, in Flint, MI, which is where Jeff used to own restaurants with his brothers before he went to college. And Jeff was blown away to hea ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/20/2007 8:00 AM

I was delighted to be able to do this women’s night out-type event and not have to get on an airplane! This was a terrific church up near the Mall of Georgia, which made for interesting driving in rush hour traffic,
as anyone who knows Atlanta traffic might guess! But once I actually got there, what a fun group of ladies! There were probably about 350 women packed into the old sanctuary, and they had brought friends, neighbors, co-workers, and so on. The organizers had told me that they were hoping this would be a good event for church members to invite their friends to, and that is exactly what happened. I had at least three women stop me in the bathroom and tell me privately that they had brought a neighbor who was really struggling with her marriage, or had invited a co-worker who wasn’t as interested in hearing about men but wanted to hear me speak because she read my column in the paper every week, or so on. Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/11/2007 8:00 AM

Jeff and I flew to South Dakota on Friday and when we landed, it was about five degrees below zero. What did we get ourselves into?! We also were several hours late and by the time we got in, we basically had to run to dinner.

We were delighted to spend time with the senior Pastor Tim and his wife Dawn of Brookings Wesleyan Church. They were the real duo and we thoroughly enjoyed the entire weekend with them. This was a marriage conference and it was  very interesting because South Dakota is not heavily populated; and Brookings is a college town that has 20,000 residents, most of which are the college. The church has 900 people, which probably means ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/5/2007 8:00 AM

Today, Monday, I did absolutely no work at all. I have been feeling so convicted that I wasn’t really trusting the Lord by not being purposeful about taking a Sabbath. For several years I had been trying so hard to do all these events, write these books, and write the articles that I needed to write for the column that I had really been skimping on the idea of a Sabbath. I felt like the Lord was really challenging me just as He says in his Word, that we are supposed to thrive as a discipline and we are supposed to trust Him; that we’ll have enough money for all of the things we need to do but we need to give that first 10% of our finances to Him.

I had felt the Lord encouraging me that I had learned how to thrive and how to trust Him financially years ago, but I had never really learned to trust Him with my time. So, I felt very convinced that I was supposed be very careful about starting to take a Sabbath every we ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/3/2007 8:00 AM

My assistant, Leslie Hettenbach, and I had to leave the women’s event at Sagemont in Houston Saturday morning to get to Sun Valley Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona. The retreat speaker starting Saturday morning at Sun Valley was Tammy Trent, the singer who had lost her husband and had written a book about it. I had really hoped to meet her, and hopefully, one of these days our paths will cross, but I wasn’t able this time to get there in time to see her. Leslie and I both had to overcome a little bit of a stomach bug of some sort. We decided it would safest to eat only crackers and drink only ginger ale for the weekend. I did five services with the Pastoral interview on Saturday night and Sunday morning with Pastor Scott at Sun Valley. Boy, I had so much respect for pastors whose churches have grown like wildfire. This church was a church of 400 people only 3 years ago, and now it’s a church of approximately 1800 peopl ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/2/2007 8:00 AM

On Friday, February 2nd my assistant Leslie and I flew to Houston where we were picked up at the airport and driven down to speak at a weekend women’s retreat for Sagemont Church, out of Houston. The retreat was in Galveston, which is about an hour’s drive south of Houston. It took us a while to get there because right before we got to Galveston the highway was closed by 5 car accidents. We ended up pulling off the highway and having a leisurely early dinner with Karen, the sweet woman who had picked us up at the airport. It turns out Karen was the lady who was in charge of running the “For Women Only Bible Study” that the women of Sagemont were already doing. It was very encouraging to hear how some of the women had responded. She said for example that one of the women had started in the first week or two to put some of the truths in practice about trying to respect her husband, build him up, and be very careful ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 1/29/2007 8:00 AM

On Monday, the day after I got back from Chicago, I got on a plane again with my friend and co-author Lisa Rice and we flew to Dayton, Ohio for me to be able to speak at a college chapel at Cedarville University. Two wonderful students who were so enthusiastic about Cedarville picked us up, and immediately    Lisa started getting very intrigued about this great University. Cedarville is sort of placed out in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, yet has excellent academic standards. According to the Dean of students, Cedarville is in the top 12% of all schools nationwide in terms of SAT Scores and grades of the entering class. Cedarville is also a Christian University, and these students were certainly very enthusiastic about it.

The next morning, I spoke at the daily college chapel of about 3,000 people. It’s a mandatory service, which to me was very interesting. I was very fascinated about the fact that they have a ... Read More »