ROSELAWN - The members of Allen Temple A.M.E. Church will celebrate Women's Day at their church here with the highest-ranking female clergy member in the church's history - Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie. She is the first elected female bishop of the 214-year-old African Methodist Episcopal Church.

McKenzie will preach next Sunday at the church's 10:45 a.m. service as part of a "Salute to Womanhood."

"We're very excited to have her," said Dorothea Frederick, co-chair of the event's organizing committee. "We hope our women walk away knowing that as long as God is the head of their lives, and they let him empower them, they can do anything in their lives."

McKenzie, who now serves as the bishop over the 18th district of the A.M.E. church in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland, was elected at the church's quadrennial convention in Cincinnati in July 2000.

Before becoming bishop, she served as pastor of three churches in rural and urban areas, including the 103-year-old Payne Memorial A.M.E. Church in Baltimore.

"We especially want to empower our young women. We want to show them that with spirituality, you can become successful," said Janice Gamble, chair of the organizing committee. "We should look for our salvation in Christ and not in material things."

For more information on McKenzie, see www.18thame.org. For information on her visit, call the church at 531-7539.