Women’s tea and testimony group starting

COSHOCTON – Both of Heather Stoffer’s boys were born overseas when she and her husband were in the military.

“We were in Guam and 7,000 miles away from family and plane tickets were around $2,000,” she said.

Stoffer was without family and long time friends, but she found her support system through a group called Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC).

“It was a nondenominational group of women helping women,” she said.

Stoffer has wanted to start something similar to it here in Coshocton and the timing is finally right for her and her family.

“I started a new job and am no longer having to drive an hour and a half to work,” she said.

The first meeting of the Women’s Tea & Testimony group will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 17, at the Coshocton Christian Tabernacle. The group is open to women age 16 and up, but child care is not available at this time.

“Hopefully women can meet someone in their age group and just someone that can tell them they know what they are going through and understand that it can be rough,” Stoffer said. “Maybe the 16-19 year olds will find a mother figure that they might not have at home. Everything we talk about though will be confidential and there will be no judgment.”

She is hoping that meeting one time a month will be easy for women to work into their schedule and plan time to fellowship with each other.

“Once we get started I want to work on a full year calendar,” Stoffer said. “I know we will meet on Saturdays though, but it might not always be at the Tabernacle. That just happened to be the open space.”

Everyone who attends on March 17 is encouraged to wear green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Light refreshments will be served that day and different types of tea will be available.

Anyone with questions is welcome to e-mail Stoffer at heatherstoffer@gmail.com. She is also looking for people who would be willing to sing at the meetings, help with food and beverages, set up and tear down, share testimonies or pray with others. Stoffer would like to go with a theme each month and is thinking about doing a community outreach project in April. Ideas for those projects also can be e-mailed to her.

“I’m really open to ideas so send them over,” she said.

Proverbs 27:9 sums up Stoffer’s goal for the group. “A sweet friendship refreshes the soul.”

Category: Faith