Embracing Womanhood: Final Frontier
On March 28, 2024, WFWP USA hosted a GWPN Forum on the topic of “Embracing Womanhood: Final Frontier,” emceed by Ms. Adia Lancaster, New Hope Foundation International Director, and GWPN Field Coordinator. The Forum provided a chance for speakers and participants to discuss womanhood and its challenges. This time, the forum had three brilliant women speakers with whom we celebrated the end of Women’s History Month. As an introduction, Ms. Adia Lancaster spoke about various events hosted during Women’s History Month and highlighted the importance of the forum, which stood as a perfect closing.
Following the introduction, WFWP President Kaeleigh Moffitt shared powerful insights from WFWP Founder Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon’s life and emphasized the vital role of embracing womanhood in building a sustainable and peaceful world. During her speech, President Kaeleigh Moffitt provided a clear example of what it means to be a true woman by delving deeper into Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon’s womanhood. Thus, she highlighted three main points in embracing womanhood:
1) True liberation of women. This means awakening within ourselves and understanding who we really are as divine creatures of God and reflecting God in everything we do.
2) No competition between men and women. This point is very important in understanding the unique and special role of both men and women in forming a peaceful, happy world. We need each other, and we have to foster our partnership and collaboration with men rather than competing with them.
3) Women’s touch is needed in all spheres of our lives, and only motherly love can heal all the wounds and be that missing piece in our world. This also puts a big responsibility on women, and we have to understand and embrace that with full love and appreciation.
After such empowering words from the president, Ms. Adia Lancaster kindly introduced the first speaker and invited Councilmember Christine Ellis to the virtual stage of the forum. Being very grateful for the chance to speak at the forum, Councilmember Christine Ellis highly emphasized the importance of such events, whereby women can discuss shared challenges and opportunities of womanhood, come together to collaborate, connect, and lift each other’s spirits up. She also mentioned that the main reason which prompted her to come and speak at that forum was supporting women’s leadership and sisterhood. Councilmember Christine Ellis considers herself a follower of Mother Moon’s philosophy when it comes to womanhood and can totally relate to everything she writes in her books. As the first elected black woman official of the city of Chandler, she shared that God ordained this path for her. She considers herself a person who does everything from her heart out of love, and that is her main motivation to get up every day and better the lives of people despite the difficulties of life. She sticks to her father’s words: “you take care of people, and people take care of you.” She truly believes that we meet everyone in our lives for a divine reason whereby we impact the lives of others, and our life is also impacted by those people. Concluding her speech, she encouraged others to ask themselves a question, “how can I elevate another woman even if she is not here with me.” She reminded everyone that we all have a unique opportunity to serve as a mirror for those around us and spread the love.
The next surprise speaker was Ms. Rhia Luz – the youngest of seven children raised by a widowed mother, she is also a mother of three children, a registered nurse, a breast cancer survivor, and a radio show host. Before starting her speech, Ms. Rhia Luz shortly explained why she accidentally became a surprise speaker at the forum. Since one of the speakers got sick and a replacement was needed, she decided to follow Mother Moon’s words by stepping in as a women leader and thus, she said “yes” even though she had no prepared speech for the event. She highlighted that all her words would come from the heart, and that would add an extra beauty to her words. She read inspiring excerpts from Mother Moon’s book about true woman leaders, motherly love, and shared with the audience that women are feminine representatives of God sent for forming a peaceful and loving world. When one clearly and deeply understands one’s true mission as a God’s representative – that is the moment when enlightenment comes, and everyone starts to treat each other with love and compassion only. By finalizing her speech, she invited and encouraged everyone to join WFWP to learn about love and womanhood as she did when she first joined the organization.
The third and last speaker of the forum was Jan Whalen – Founder of Whalen Voices LLC, a dedicated teacher, book creation coach, and mentor to writers. Through her dedicated work and experience, Ms. Jan Whalen empowers women to share and write about their life lessons. Her personal experiences full of various challenges provided her a wealth of powerful stories that she generously shares with others. When she was invited to the virtual stage, Ms. Jan Whalen started to talk about the limited number of roles women could have in the past. She also mentioned the mindset of people, which was mostly centered on the belief that any job women can do can also be better done by men. But times have changed, and now there are more opportunities and roles for women to do their job in the best way they can. She believes that women are creators and that we can have the power to keep things moving forward. Indeed, women are so gifted, and deep inside their hearts, they already know everything. Women bring valuable gifts to the table, and it is important to note that women also have a responsibility to be considerate of others. By saying these words, Ms. Jan Whalen highlighted that the whole is male and female, and that we need everybody to play their role and chase their purpose. To do so, she suggested three main ways of embracing womanhood:
1) Writing and journaling. Writing is indeed a great reflective practice to get to know oneself better. It helps to build our inner strength and empowers us to use our voice.
2) Quote more women;
3) To watch and listen to other women.
Thus, she concluded by saying that we are all one, when one succeeds - we all succeed.
After the speakers’ insightful speeches, the moderator Ms. Adia Lancaster invited the speakers and the president to a Round Table discussion whereby they could answer the questions and share their reflections on embracing womanhood. Thus, the webinar brought valuable insights about womanhood both to the speakers and the audience.