Preconference...I Second That Emotion..was awesome. My favorite speakers were Patsy Clairmont and Anita Renfroe. Jan was good too but I loved the humor in Patsy and Anita's talks.
PATSY....
Opening....."Today we'll wind our way through the dense tangle of emotions that make us tender and tough, sweet and surly, forgiving and frightful, calm and tense. We are a study in complexity. But guess what? God is up to the task."
She used a gigantic wad of rubber bands tied and knotted together to represent our emotions! It was very affective!
Goals...to get in touch with the ways we are affected by our emotions and to make a plan to let God work with us in areas where we need improvement.
Scripture to ponder: Romans 12:2
JAN....
Emotions can be so deceiving. They have a way of distorting the truth and of embellishing perceptions to such an extent it often is hard to navigate through life. God knows this about us and gives us a Guide and a Map to make our journey toward peaceful emotions no t only possible but guaranteed when we follow His plan.
Guide....read: John 14:16-17; John 14:23-27; John 15:26; John 16:7-14
Map......read: Hebrews 4:12; Proverbs 2:2-11
ANITA...
Anita....made us laugh....the kind of laughing that makes you cry! I bought her dvd and I can't wait to share it with my friends!
INFINITE GRACE....
All the speakers were wonderful. Nicole Johnson's skits were incredible this year. She made us laugh and she made us cry. We got to meet her baby boy!(He is beautiful!)
I loved Patsy's message and Sandi Patty's might have been my favorite. She ended by singing "To God Be the Glory" and, I think, it was the longest standing ovation of the conference.
It was wonderful to see Luci Swindoll. She is struggling with arthritis in her knees and will probably have to cut back on her conference schedule. She has such a presence...she will be missed.
Natalie Grant was great and has a story that particularly reaches our teen daughters and young women. She had her twin baby girls with her...Bella and Grace! I think they are 1 year old.
Many of the families of the speakers were at this conference! I loved meeting their parents, spouses, children and grandchildren. Marilyn Meberg's daughter and grandsons were there from Marion, Ohio! It looked like her grandsons have red hair! (a favorite color in our family)
There was a wonderful young singer, Nicole C. Mullen. She is very talented and performs the new stuff (gospel pop)...lots of funky choreography and she has young teens as her backround dancers and singers. They were very impressive. She is the mother of 4 and has a wonderful family. Her daughter and nephew are part of her show. Nicole, herself, looks like a teenager...so little and pretty. I'm sure her ministry will reach lots of youth and that's a good thing! She can quote scripture like no one I've heard in a while. The problem is that she gets so excited that she talks fast....really, really fast!!! It was wonderful to hear her because you knew she was just so full of the Lord that she wanted to share His words!
Perhaps the greatest thing that happened was that I made the decision to sponsor a child through World Vision. I thought about it Friday. They had bright orange bags scattered throughout the arena. Their goal was to have all the children in those bags sponsored by the end of the conference. I have listened and watched this World Vision presentation for many years at conferences but this year I felt really lead to take the step. The cost is $35 monthly and this has probably been one of our hardest years financially but my friend told me to trust God to provide. So I went in on Saturday morning and prayed to be led to my child. There were still dozens of bags left on the seats but not in our row. So I walked until I found one that seemed to call me. In it was a picture of Zehara. She is 6 years old and from Ethiopia. Her father is a farmer and she has 2 sisters and 2 brothers. Her area is greatly affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. She is beautiful and there was something in her eyes that almost seemed sad. I didn't look in any other bags. I had found my child.
I will be excited to share our journey with you. And I encourage you, if you feel the call, to sponsor a child of your own. Go to the Women of Faith website and find the link for World Vision. You can do it as a family/families, club, group, congregation.
I had the best time with my friends from church...Ruby, Billye, Alice, Bev, Debbie, Connie, Anita! (and I missed my family) One of our friends, Kip, had to cancel out at the last minute as her mom was very ill and she had to travel to Kentucky to be with her. We prayed for them and missed Kip and her enthusiastic energy all weekend.
I saw my friend Luann several times during Pre Conference and I knew she and her daughers were sitting in the section across from us in the arena along with friends from Pataskala and a few from our church! I also saw the big group from Coshocton, who were sitting just below us in the same section! I recognized Jenny Coffman and Donna Frank and JoAnn Butcher.
Thank you to Debbie, Anita and Billye for driving! From a person who thinks of Columbus as a foreign country...you were amazing buzzing us around there!
And the dinners at The Cheesecake Factory and Champs were delicious! I hope to take Mike and go back someday.
A special thanks to Ruby for being our groupleader and finding these wonderful tickets and booking the hotel and acting as room mother! It is not an easy job but we were all blessed by your efforts and I pray you felt blessed too!
I'm looking forward to next year's conference...A GRAND NEW DAY. The Columbus dates are April 24 & 25.
We will be reserving our tickets from ladies we met at conference who take a giant leap of faith and reserve 130 tickets and 78 tickets. They are in great sections! Might I suggest that, if you are getting the government money in May and June, you tuck away $129 (it went up $10). Ruby has the contact information for these ticket ladies. That amount will get you into Pre-Conference and Opening session on Friday and the all day Conference on Saturday and it includes box lunches for both days (they were very good this year). We stayed at the Hampton Inn at the Airport and they had a wonderful complimentary breakfast each morning and the drive to the arena was quite easy (okay...easy for me to say from the passenger seat but it seemed easy!)
Whew! That was a big ol batch of blessings for 2 days!
I would love to take you all with me next year!!
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