Missions Conference Part 1

This past week, our church hosted its annual missions conference! This is always a favorite week at our church, and this year was no exception at all! This year we had one family visit, and they are planning to leave for Ethiopia next year, Lord willing. We were excited to get to know them and hear about their upcoming ministry.

The conference started on Wednesday night. We went to church to meet with our missionaries, heard a message given by Mr. W (the missionary), and enjoyed an ice cream social afterward. He gave a great challenge on the importance of missions and obeying whatever plans God has called us to. One of my favorite quotes mentioned that evening was the following: “Do for one what you wish you could do for millions.” It has definitely given me food for thought!

After all of that, we enjoyed an ice cream social with our church family and chatted with the missionaries a bit. They have several kids around our ages, so we wanted to make them feel especially comfortable and welcome. We were unable to attend Thursday evening’s conference because of Dad’s arrival home. So instead of hearing about Africa that night, we heard all about Asia and saw plenty of pictures that Dad took on his trip!

On Friday we had a special dinner for the missionaries, the church staff, and the deacons and their families. It was a great time for fellowship in a more intimate setting.

Before the Thanksgiving-style dinner started, we enjoyed mingling with others, sipping hot apple cider and cranberry ginger ale, and snacking on chex mix, and bagels with dip.

After we prayed for the meal, we surprised our worship pastor (above) and our associate pastor with mini birthday cakes. They were both celebrating birthdays and so we sang to them! J

Filing through the food line. We had an amazing feast! There was turkey, cranberry relish and sauce, pickles, cheese, broccoli and cheese casserole, rolls with butter, fruit salad, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy, and stuffing. The dessert table was filled with pies including pecan, pumpkin, and derby; cinnamon rolls, and cookies of all sorts. Nobody went hungry, that’s for sure!

After dinner, my siblings and I were able to get to know the missionary kids a bit better. Someone had put in the American Girl movie “Felicity” for the little girls, and our friend K from church started his own narrative monologue to go along with the film since we couldn’t hear the words from where we were sitting. He kept us in stitches the whole evening! As if that wasn’t enough laughing, we watched a Tim Hawkins video after that and laughed some more!

We had a great evening fellowshipping with those from our church as well as making new friends with the missionaries. Come back tomorrow to hear about the rest of the missions conference!