| February 20, 2002 11:30 PM (Abby's Thoughts) Anyone have suggestions on how I can get Sarah to update this webpage more often??? I keep reminding her and she says she has thoughts to post but then she always forgets. *sigh* Maybe one day I'll just have to sit on her and make her post. HAHAHA! =) Anyways, that's not what this post is about. Hee hee. So, I went to World Christian Conference this past weekend and it was AWESOME. I highly recommend it. I was just so encouraged and I learned so much! And the neat thing was, I think everyone I went with learned A LOT. After we got back from the conference, Vic, Avery, Mark, and I sorta debriefed and prayed together about all the things we learned and the commitments we made. It was really cool to see that all of them seemed to have enjoyed the conference as much as I did. So what made it so great, you may ask. =) Hmm, too much to write about all of it. I'll write about a little bit of it and if you want to hear more, just ask me. I'll be happy to share. =) So the highlight of the conference for me was meeting this missionary woman who works with Caleb Project. We talked for about 45 minutes and I was just so encouraged by what she had to say. I asked her about missions in the 10/40 window and I asked her about ministry stuff (like my question from my previous post). I told her that I've been sort of waiting for God to place a huge desire in my heart for a particular country or people group to minister to in the future. And then I told her about how I want to do all these different ministries or areas of volunteer work and how I couldn't figure out which one I wanted to do most (I felt I had to figure that out because I was spreading myself too thin). And she encouraged me to stop looking at how to find out what I WANT most and think more about where I am NEEDED most. And just see what God has to show me there. I know that seems a little bit of an obvious answer but it totally made me rethink how I view missions and ministry. Because mostly I've been just trying to figure out what *I* want to do instead of looking more at where maybe God needs me to be. Not that God NEEDS me for His work, but He does CHOOSE to use us and He places us where He thinks we can serve best. So I started thinking more about this whole need thing and it's given me new ideas about what I want to do this summer. And it's also helped me in thinking about my ministries and how I'm going to figure out where I need to focus my time and energy. Also what helped me in thinking about the ministry question was one of the messages by one of the two main speakers. He talked about preparation for ministry and how the preparation part is just as important as the ministry itself. He used the example of how Jesus' ministry was only 3 and a half years and yet he spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying in preparation for those few short years. The speaker mentioned how some people might think that's a waste of His time because He could have used those 40 days to heal the sick and preach, etc...but Jesus knew how important it was to take that time to prepare through PRAYER. "God is not in a hurry." I liked that statement in the message. And I think that's something I need to work on. I don't spend nearly enough time in preparation for ministry. I usually just dive right in, thinking that I need to squeeze in as much "work" in the ministry as I can in the time that I have. I think that's why I feel so busy all the time. I try to rush things and fit everything into MY time frame. But God has His own time frame and it's not one that's rushed. Anyways, those are just some things I learned at WCC. There was so much to learn there. I'm still processing it all. I'm so thankful that Es encouraged me to go. =) Random aside: I was very happy when I read Jessie's plop today. Cuz I LOVE the roommate circle. It's a huge source of encouragement and spazziness for me and it's something that's so special and unique in my life. I feel very blessed by it. =) |