Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Missions Conference



What A Week!

I have never been to a prayer retreat or any other retreat for that matter, but I can not see how it could be any better then the mission conference Teresa and I attended last week.
I was at work on Tuesday morning which made us being the lasts ones to get to the Richmond, Va. Airport Tuesday night. A young couple from Fort Worth, Tx., a young man from Irvine, Ca., and ourselves were the late arrivals at about 11:30 eastern time. We got registered, unpacked and into bed at 1 am, breakfast at 7 am, don’t be late. After Brother Dave “Louie” Reber (career M) referred to the conference as “running the gauntlet” I was even more nervous about the whole thing. Still I was so tried I slept well and was surprisingly rested at 5 am.
We made it a little early for breakfast, even though we didn’t know where we were going, and got to look around a few minutes. Food was good and lots of it, Mark I have pictures. Then we headed to the morning worship. We were assigned a group number (8) and were told to set with that group. There was another elderly couple (Troy’s scale) and a younger couple around 30 years of age. Now this is where the comparisons to a retreat come in. I have never been to anything like it. Think of the best worship service your home church has ever had then remove all the people who are not sold out to Jesus (those with fire insurance only) and add people who get to be with the sold out to Jesus people every day and you get an idea what was going on there. I even forgot to worry about the up coming interviews. Day 1 was great. Enter Day 2.
We now have our job in hand and ready for our interviews. I think we had three formal, or announced interviews, and several people who spent time with us in a more informal manner. But the most pressure I was under was to choose a second and third choice. We had a great deal of trouble finding jobs we were qualified for and we could do. And we never found any that we could see ourselves doing at this time in our lives. So on Day 3 we wrote down two jobs that we could do and may do when we can no longer get out and work with the people full time. That was a load off my mind. I was asking God to show me any job that he would have me do other then our job in Romania, and I got no answer. The choices for second and third were just logical decisions not inspired ones. And at the end of the last formal interview our consultant said he would recommend us for appointment to CEE in southeast Romania.
The next things are done by committees and boards, which should finalize us on November 6. Please keep us in your prayers that God’s will, will be done in our lives.