My first two days in Colorado

In an effort to not get any further behind in my blogging, I’d thought I’d quick write about these first two days here at the GEMS Conference in Colorado. Plus, that way I won’t forget everything!

I left early Thursday morning and encountered much traffic and rain on my way to the airport. By the time I parked and made it through security, I had only about a half hour before boarding my flight. It was a really full flight, but the one empty seat on the plane was next to me! That was so nice! Apparently Frontier Airlines has Direct TV on all their flights…except for the one I was on. Apparently it was a new plane and hadn’t been completely outfitted yet. Which made me wonder…what else wasn’t ready?

But we got to Colorado safely and my partner met me at my gate and we had some time to eat and chat together before our shuttle to Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. On the drive, we saw LOTS of lightning and it was POURING and THUNDERING when we arrived. We actually used the umbrellas that we brought along, and you know us Washingtonians don’t really use umbrellas. But it doesn’t rain like that in Washington much!

We went to dinner and then we were off to our first mass meeting, the Women’s Night of Worship. As always, it was beautiful, encouraging, and inspiring to worship our God with 500 women, and women who love GEMS as much as I do at that! It’s the perfect way to begin a conference.

Today began early with breakfast at 7:15 and then we were off to our mass meeting with praise & worship and information and a great speaker, Lisa Harper. She is so funny and had a great message. We ended with a new song that a friend of mine had actually introduced me to and it was beautiful. I don’t remember the name of it…”Beautiful Things” by Gungor, I think.

We moved very quickly to our first workshop and I went to hear Lisa Harper again (I always sign up for workshops that the keynote speakers lead – guaranteed to be good!) Lunch with all the other Area Coordinators and Leadership Trainers and then I had to beeline over to the workshop I was helping to lead today!

Oh, and when I say “beeline”, I mean, walking across an entire state university campus, which, at a brisk walk, takes 15 minutes. We go back & forth several times a day. We are getting our exercise. In fact, we are doing so much walking that the conference committee gave all the counselors pedometers so we could track our steps! I didn’t wear mine today because I had a dress on, but my roomie did and she had 15,000 steps, which is about 5 miles.

So, I led a workshop on Letter Art Photography with a fellow counselor from Michigan and we think it went really well! Everyone was really excited about their take-home craft and the information we gave them. Then I went to a workshop on Experiencing Africa…all about the GEMS in Africa. So. Good. I cannot wait to share all that information with my girls and my counselors and my church!

Then we beelined across campus again for dinner, changed into our uniforms for theme night, and beelined back across campus again. It hasn’t been TOO hot and humid today, but it was at about 6:00 and by the time I got there for sound checks, I  was sweating! And then the sound guy asked me to drop the mic box and cord down the back of my shirt. Eeewww! Anyway, theme night went really well and my part in it also went really well, so we are so thankful!

I’m just glad these first two days are over because, while extremely awesome and valuable, they were somewhat exhausting. I am SO looking forward to tomorrow. Ray VanderLaan is speaking ALL morning and in the evening we have women’s night out with a western bbq dinner and shopping in downtown “Old Town” Ft. Collins! Sounds like my kind of girls’ night out! Other people will do things like play in a volleyball tournament, but our plan is to CHILL.

God is so good. We are blessed to be here. Today we had sad news here at the conference. A GEMS Counselor in Canada, who was supposed to be at this conference, suffered an aneurysm a few days ago and multiple strokes since then. She died today. I don’t know how old she was, but we were told she has a “young family”. So sad. But we know that God has conquered death and that her faith was in her Lord Jesus and she will live forever now in God’s kingdom. That doesn’t make it any less of a tragedy for those left behind. Please pray for her family and her GEMS girls.

God is good all the time. All the time God is good.