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It has been several weeks since our Finishing Well:
Living with Grace and Gusto workshop at Central Kitsap Presbyterian Church in
Silverdale, Washington. I want to let you know how well received the material
has been. Small groups of people are meeting and working on their planners. I
have heard of fire proof cabinets being bought and safety deposit boxes opened
and content reviewed. I even heard stories about where the key to the safety
deposit box was found. The Finishing Well event was definitely a kick off for
many people to take a serious and thoughtful look at their lives and what needs
to be done to live with grace and gusto. Your book, You Only Die Once, and The
Personal Planner, are serving as great reference materials and some people are
speaking of sending sets of books to their relatives and friends across the
United States. The word about our Finishing Well workshop has reached other
churches and we have received calls about interests in the content and materials
used at the seminar. I met with a woman from another church who is putting
together a Sunday School class around the ending of life. With the excitement of the people
attending the workshop and the follow through that is happening I think this is
an excellent testimony to the work you have done to bring this material to
groups such as the one at our church. It is exciting to realize the impact
you have made on 200 people in the Northwest and to know that your story has
touched so many lives. We are blessed that we were able to have you present your
workshop to our community and our sponsors have shared their gratitude at being
a part of the event. Please know that we feel honored that
we were able to have you in our area and to make this valuable information
available to our community. You are definitely making a difference in the lives
of families by having a guide to lead the way to planning for our ending.
Without the push from this workshop many people would continue to put this off
until it is too late. We are so thrilled that you have given hope, a plan and a
way to end our life with planning and celebration. In fact I hear many
people sharing their bodacious adventures with each other as they enjoy every
day. Your presentation brought humor to a
difficult subject and served as the perfect launching pad to helping each of us
to prepare for what we know will be a certainty in our lives. Death is not an
option but something we now have the tools to prepare for with our families. Thank you again, Margie and Jenks, for
the outstanding Finishing Well: Living with Grace and Gusto workshop you
presented at CKPC. It was well received, well delivered and is making a
difference in the preparedness of our church and community. - Jan
Stump and Mariwyn Tinsley
Our
company, Abiding HomeCare, was a sponsor of the Jenkins’ seminar, “Finishing
Well: Living with Grace and Gusto” at Central Kitsap Presbyterian Church in
Bremerton, WA.
You Only Die Once Seminar, offered by Margie Jenkins, psychotherapist and nationally recognized for her work on end-of-life issues, is a most helpful and gratifying experience. You will leave ready to get your end-of-life plan started with the essential tools the seminar provides. My Personal Planner is the essential companion to You Only Die Once and the book "begs" to be implemented by the planner. Virtually everything you need to do is included in this well laid out workbook to assist the user to prepare for the end of life. Get to this seminar in the city nearest you! I was privileged to attend the workshop, “Finishing Well”, conducted by Margie and her husband Bob (Jenks) at Central Kitsap Presbyterian Church, Bremerton, Washington, Saturday, September 19, 2009. In May of 2008, First Presbyterian Church of Battle Creek hosted the Margie and Jenks workshop "You Only Die Once". We had over 150 participants and the critiques they completed at the end of the day had a repetitive theme..."the resource material is the most comprehensive I've ever seen" and the antidotal stories demonstrated how pre-arrangements made by loved ones are not always helpful to the family if they're not
done correctly. Personally, I learned that there's a lot to consider to prepare for your end-of-life and Margie explained that you just need to do a little bit at a time and the workbook takes you through that process.- Cheryl Luts, First Presbyterian Church Jenkins Project Publicity Chair After reading You Only Die Once, I invited Margie Jenkins and her husband to lead some seminars in our part of Florida. The pastor of one of the churches that was hosting a seminar called and said only five people had signed up. I asked if Margie could speak for a couple of minutes during the worship service the Sunday before that seminar. She agreed. After hearing Margie, over 100 people attended the seminar two days later. They all agreed that it was well worth the time and the nominal fee. In the five presentations the Jenkins gave in our area, nearly 500 people were encouraged to spare their relatives the agony of searching for important documents and wondering what to do with precious possessions. Using their invaluable workbook, Margie and Jenks give a lighthearted, but serious approach to planning for death. They cover all the
important topics, with suggestions on how best to accomplish the necessary tasks. To my knowledge, theirs is the only presentation that covers what we need to identify and do as we get organized for our last act on earth – and once organized, we can live bodaciously until that time. In today’s lingo, their seminar gets five stars! - James M. Cummings, Lakeland, Florida Who else than Margie Jenkins could guide us with loving firmness through the end-phase of our life? Her encouragement to remain in control by organizing and planning ahead perfectly fits the tenets of the Funeral Consumers Alliance (www.funerals.org). Margie Jenkins has been a member and strong supporter of the Houston chapter for years. Her engaging way to approach end-of-life issues has earned her a high regard in FCA communities nationwide. As a much sought-after speaker she has given successful presentations at annual FCA meetings in Houston, Austin, Modesto, CA, and Burlingame, CA.
Margie and her husband, Jenks, spoke to a crowd of about 65 or so people, mostly community hospice supporters, volunteers and Board members. A common challenge we face is how to enroll participation in public programs dealing w/ death and grief when our culture would rather not talk about it or acknowledge it. Enter Margie, stage right... with skill and ease, she and her husband Jenks set the tone for a lively and robust evening of learning, laughter, and engaging discussion about death, of all things. We hoped that they would put people at ease, inject some much needed humor, and teach our audience some concrete tools for starting the dreaded conversation about the end of life with those we love. Margie and Jenks delivered! Broaching the topic of dying never seemed so natural and non-threatening. To learn from such a dynamic, confident, and energetic couple of octogenarians was reassuring and inspiring. We are grateful for their gifts.
Margie welcomes comments, questions, or stories. |
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