BMA Convention

We are slowly, but surely getting settled in. We finally have living room furniture, and Maria has bed to sleep in. She actually had a queen-sized mattress on her floor before, but it took up most of the room. A single bed fits much better.

The church we are attending is a part of BMA. BMA had its annual convention in Due West, SC--actually about 2 hours "Due South" from where we live. We decided this was too good an opportunity to pass up. The preaching was so full of "meat". The singing made you wonder how the singing in heaven could be better. Imagine close to a thousand people putting there whole hearts into singing "606"--It was enough to send chills up and down my spine--even in a very warm building. Lyle did an awesome job of leading the singing. They had a children's choir. In only two practices, Wendy did an amazing job with the children. It was beautiful!!

The ladies' sessions were a real treat for me, personally. Dorcas Smucker spoke on relationships. She is one of my heroes. I've been trying to analyze why I like her so much. I have both of her books, and I faithfully read her blog, and I always read her articles. I think one big reason I admire her so much is that she is so Godly and yet so human. She struggles with a lot of the nitty-gritty things I suspect a lot of us struggle with. Then she deals with those things--telling us exactly how she is processing them, often with a lot of humor, but always with honesty. In short--I can relate, even though our lives are very different in many ways.

In a workshop, two ladies from the mission field--one from Mexico and one from Bangladesh shared the hearts as they talked about the joys and struggles of being in missions with their families. There were few dry eyes in the audience as they talked about--not only the proper missionary stuff, but the times when they really struggled with being where they were--the loneliness at Christmas time--how the children their children were associating with were affecting their lives--We need to pray for these families...

One of the huge blessings of the event was all the people I knew. I wasn't expecting to know so many people. Bill's cousin--Bill and Mae (she went through the treatment for breast cancer about the same time I did. Our hairdos were about the same:) ), Lisa, Lorie, and Darlene--three little girls I went to church with as a child, have now grown up, married and have children. I hadn't seen them probably in over 15 years. It was so easy to connect with them. Cousin Joyce and her family of six girls and one boy--Maria and two of her daughters took up right where they left off when we moved away from SC three years ago, Phil--a minister and leader in the conference--I hadn't seen him in about 20 years. Simon, a former pastor, preached a great sermon on Friday evening. It was nice catching up with someone from Catlett. Harry and Arlene, a family I had lived with for a year when teaching school in In PA, and their daughter Cathy and her family were there. Talk about trips down memory lane. Three of Bill's former students were there--William, Daniel, and Jennifer. It was great connecting with them. We got to meet Daniel's fiance', and we got to see where Jennifer and her new husband, Ellis live. Danny and Benita were there on Sunday to enable his mother to catch a ride to PA. It was mighty good to see them as well. I believe I am especially homesick for the Barnwell folks since we have moved further South again. I could go on and on...the Mungs, Dustin, Joyce, Nadene's sister, the man that knew Uncle Jesse and Aunt Ruth, and whose parents grew up in KS and who knew so many people we knew, Pat and Patty...You get the picture--the Mennonite game.

I think one of the reasons these connections meant so much is that they were connecting me to my past. Since we have just moved, we really don't have a history here yet--that all takes time.

We have now gotten back into continuing the settling in process. There is still much to do, but as I said, it is coming.

The things we do today are making our history or story for the future. Live it well!!