Here’s a collage of some pics from the Friday evening “Celebrating Women”. Lee G., our media gal, put it together in order to have something to share with you all and with folks at home. After the Friday session, several women came in who attend Holy Trinity. They began praying and stayed all night praying for the Saturday session. I am in awe of God’s people here. We had almost 70 ladies (some came in late and some left a little early, so it was hard to get a head count). The weather really hindered several ladies from atttending.
The day started early for me at 5:45AM, and I had gone to bed quite late around 1:30AM. Needless to say, I have not had much rest so far this trip. I did lay down this afternoon and slept deeply until around 7:30PM.
Today’s Leadership conference was very sweet as well. The ladies were overwhelmed with how beautiful the meal, flowers, decorations, gift packages, etc. Diane Camarotti made the most incredibly yummy salad buffet and meat/cheese trays. Wonderful desserts as well. Several Romanian ladies asked her to train them on how to cook like that in order to be able to do a large gathering themselves. Wow!!! She may have a whole new ministry here with training women to do large group events. As usual, Frank was such an amazing help.
At the beginning of the conference today, Daniela had all the ladies stand up who came from out of town. Each lady told of their city, and we were all amazed at how many different regions were represented here today. Even ladies came from Moldova. This is very exciting to see the Lord moving more Bible resources into Moldova with the trained leadership ready to mentor the study groups. It really “floats my boat”!!!!
In addition, many of the IMB missionaries helped out to cover the many tasks associated with the conference like table setup, decorating, shuttling people, registration, greeting, manning the resource table, restocking the food, washing dishes, and on and on and on. We were literally cleaned up and out of the church within one hour. That is amazing! Kudos to this team to have worked so well together like a well-oiled machine – such servants’ hearts. Frank and Diane were thrilled at how smoothly it went. Only God, only God.
I was a bit discouraged with myself this morning during the introductory session. I had forgotten to take my meds and supplements, so I was battling high BP as well as brain fog. I had a difficult time a couple of times concentrating and keeping on track. I don’t think it was a huge distraction, but enough to make me a little unhappy with myself. However, it is not about me, and all about the Lord. The mission was accomplished to get the materials to the ladies, train them on the facilitation, bless them and help make them feel God’s great love and adoration.
I have already read several reports / comments on emails and Facebook from ladies who attended. It appears the ladies felt it was a great conference and are very excited about the Bible study. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness!!
Tomorrow, we go to church at Emanuel, where Frank will be preaching. Then on to lunch and we hope to visit a local attraction here in Bucharest called the Peasant Village. It is a re-creation of what a typical peasant village looks like.
On Monday, we go to meet Daniela for a 2 hour radio interview. I laughingly told her that I would run out of words by then. She laughed back, because we women never run out of words!!
We will then have lunch together with Cami, Alex, Lee and their children. We will probably only have enough time to get back for Lee’s bags to take her to the train station. She heads back home via a layover in a neighboring country. Please pray she has a safe journey traveling alone. She has done a fabulous job.
Well, it is late, so I will close for now. I do have one personal prayer request: I spoke with Charlie and Caleb via skype this evening, only to find out my son has been sick for three days. We have not been able to connect until this evening. Also, Caleb decided to break his glasses when he was upset. Sooooo, now I will be making a trek to the eye doctor again for new glasses for him when I return. Please pray all the nasal congestion and yuckies are removed from his body and also some intestinal thing.
I would appreciate your continued prayers for us here. We actually had wonderful sunshine today, so it was a surprise that some of the trains were delayed getting to Bucharest this morning. A few ladies were late getting to the conference, but all worked out well.
I will post again tomorrow evening if all goes well. Hopefully, I will have more pics ready for you.
Much love and appreciation,
Paulette