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This month my family is celebrating the high school graduation of my eldest daughter. She is the second child that I have walked alongside to this milestone. I still have one more to go. Twenty-four years ago, when I started this marriage and motherhood adventure, I had NO idea what was in store. The fight to give life to my children was intense. I miscarried three times and lost four babies before I finally carried my son full term. Those years were incredibly hard, and I mourned the children I had lost. After my third child, I was told I physically could not have any more, and I mourned again. However, once I had my three children, I was overwhelmed by the immensity of the responsibility and the workload we had created for ourselves. What had we done?!?! And things just continued to get harder. Yet, I can say this as I am nearing the end of these formative years, I am so glad that I fought to give life to these three beautiful people. I am so glad that we have worked hard and responsibly to be the parents that God called us to be. I am blessed with the honor of being their mother. While I have plenty yet to do in this lifetime, hopefully, I can say that I have done and am still doing the most important thing I could ever do: faithfully building a home and a family alongside my husband. We are blessed.
Why do I tell you this? I don’t know if you have been paying attention to what’s been going on, but the war against men, women, children, families, and homes is still being waged with fierce intensity. While there are glimmers of light and hope, the war is real, and it is heating up. In the fray, we must ask ourselves, whose kingdom are we actively building? I have been thinking about the “Building Two Kingdoms” chart found on page 99 of Five Aspects of Woman Volume One. In it, Barbara Mouser outlines the general pattern of how to go about kingdom building. If you haven’t seen it before, I advise you to read through the chart below. I think that it is a helpful tool to discern whose kingdom we are truly about.
January: Annual Board Meeting
This past January, the board for Five Aspects Ministries (ICGS) met at Lake Haven near Richards, Texas to discuss the status and direction of the ministry. We enjoyed great discussions, robust Christian fellowship, and intentional times of prayer for our team and for the ministry in general. We do not pretend to know where the Lord is leading, but we are all on board to follow wherever that may be. It is an honor to host and be able to serve alongside these delightful people.
The board of Five Aspects Ministries: Bryan Vermillion, William Peterson, Steve Ramey, Wesley Mouser, Kristine Vermillion, and Barbara Mouser.
New Book Releases
The Ladies: Emily Scheppe, Kristine Vermillion, and Barbara Mouser.
Men, Women & Marriage: Seven Biblical Principles
At the end of January, we released our new work: Men, Women & Marriage: Seven Biblical Principles. Compared to our other titles, this work is a smaller Bible study that outlines the seven basic principles that undergird a biblically sound view of personhood, gender, marriage, and sexuality in general. If you have ever wanted a smaller, “gateway” study to use to introduce others to the Five Aspects materials, this book is a great primer.
Clothed by God Body and Spirit
Then at the end of March we released Clothed by God Body and Spirit. This is the second in our Thematic Bible Study Series. This study is composed of ten lessons that walk the student through the Bible from beginning to end via the theme of clothing. From the first clothes created by God in the garden to the white robes of the saints in Revelation, the language of clothing through Scripture is well developed and worth our time and attention. If you have never done a thematic Bible study, I encourage you to do it, because it opens Scripture in profound ways that are wonderful to behold.
Homegoing
We recently learned that our sister in Christ, Phyllis Stanley, has gone to be with the Lord. For long-term friends of the ministry, this name might ring a bell. Phyllis was a Five Aspects of Women facilitator who faithfully led hundreds of women through the bible study over several decades. In response to her passing, Barbara has composed the tribute that is included below. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and the many women who were impacted by her life ministry.
A tribute to Phyllis Stanley by Barbara Mouser May 15, 2025
In the picture: Phyllis Stanley, Janet Niblack, Lee Mancini, Carol Bossert, Barbara Mouser, and Leah Green.
It was my privilege to work with Phyllis Stanley for thirty years in Five Aspects Ministries. Of the many godly women who joined me in that work, I have known none more committed to God, to His Word, to obedience, and to the work of discipleship than Phyllis Stanley.
Phyllis was a stand-out in any crowd with her bright blue eyes, blond hair, and mega-watt smile. I see her vividly even now baking bread in her cheery, red kitchen where she taught countless students the principles of baking and nutrition. I see her in her family-room chair reading the Bible. I see her graciously and warmly welcoming streams of women into her home for fellowship and learning.
Phyllis did not merely influence women with her warmth, her graciousness, and her radiance. She taught what was good by being a trainer. Her classes were characterized by focus and disciplined training. There were entrance requirements to get into her classes and standards to meet in order to stay in them. Phyllis required diligence of her students and gave twice for all she required.
For these reasons I know of none who surpassed Phyllis in the fulfillment of Titus 2:3-5. She taught what was good, encouraging the young women “to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”
In 2009, I dedicated the book Seasons of God—Spirals of Life to her with these words: PHYLLIS STANLEY—my co-laborer and friend in seedtime and harvest these past 20 years. On her 70th birthday, I commissioned a jewelry box for her to be hand-painted with two trees. The inscription was “The Pine and the Pecan stood together” (the pine representing her in her Colorado home and the pecan representing me in Texas). We stood together, with me as a writer of words and with her as a trainer of students.
The work of a writer does not go far if it does not find the “good soil” that bears thirty, sixty, or hundredfold. Phyllis was certainly the kind who “heard the word in an honest and good heart, who held it fast, and who bore fruit with perseverance” (Mark 8:15). Year after year, for three decades, her Aspects classes (limited to 12 students) filled up. Overflow applicants were put on a waiting list.
Sixteen more years have rolled past since that time, and now Phyllis has gone to be with the Lord. I am thankful for her. I rejoice in the years we labored together in God’s vineyard. Now I rejoice that she is at rest and for the rich heritage her physical children and her many spiritual daughters have received. She has closed a well-spent life worthy to be remembered and emulated.
As I consider how to sum up her multiple virtues, I realize she not only taught the principles of The Five Aspects of Woman, she became each aspect—ruling her domain for God, helping her husband and an expansive realm around her, giving the life of both physical and spiritual bread, and training the untaught as a lady wisdom with standards of excellence. Finally, embracing her role as the “glory of man,” she became what all godly women truly desire. She became a glory to God.
