How was your weekend?

Hope yours was good.  Mine was fantastic!  I finished my speech for the ladies' conference and printed it at 2:25 on Friday afternoon.  Susie and I headed for Abilene at 3:45.  We had a great time of fellowship, worship, and learning.  My sisters Emily and Melody spoke that night on A Life of Perspective and A Life of Perseverance and were wonderful--poised, insightful, funny.  I only teared up one time ;) 

Saturday morning was my turn.  My stomach was in knots as I walked up to talk.  But, as soon as I began with my power point, I was completely comfortable.  I'm not the most gifted communicator, but my life experiences and God-given passion comes through--I hope.  The 3 words that God gave me to center my speech around(Living a Life of Purpose) were Aknowledge, Accept, and Activate.  Maybe I'll post the powerpoint someday.

Next was my youngest sister, Katy, who spoke on A Life of Passion.  Last was my mother.  Her topic was A Life of Pressing On.  Both of them were awesome and seemed like they do this all the time.  You know why women need to go to things like this?  We all need to be fed and hear different perspectives sometimes.  Being a woman, wife, mom, working woman, etc is so draining at times--you serve and give of yourselves.  We need to let other lead us to the throne of Grace and let God minister to us with His Word.

We wrapped up early and Susie and I treated ourselves to Dairy Queen ice cream for the long drive home.

Sunday--PERFECT!  Sunshine, church was absolutely awesome, naps, playing basketball and jumprope with Dillon(did have some close calls with the old bladder during the jumprope!).  Tonight was a concert with Jeff Johnson(awesome worship leader) to benefit Shoes for Orphan Souls.  He was performing at a church near here.   I'm launching an orphan ministry at our church and the first event is a Shoes for Orphan Souls(ministry of Buckner Int) drive during April so I wanted to see how another church did the event.

The awesome thing is that Dillon and I stopped by Dollar General to get a new pair of athletic shoes for the drive.  Well, they are clearing out for summer and all blue-dot tagged shoes were 3 bucks!!!!  I bought 8 pair.  Mike is going to go back this week and buy some more.  We sure enjoyed imagining sweet little ones running around orphanages all over the world in those shoes.

You better believe I busted out my shirt that says 147 Million Orphans on it.  You don't get too many opportunities to wear shirts like that.  Not so sure the crowd "got it" but maybe it sparked a thought in someone's head and heart.

You can order the shirt HERE and help feed children in Africa.  Speaking of Africa---this time next week Mike will be flying to S. Africa--LUCKY!