Grace Notes

Singapore Conferences!

Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell B Vanderbon have taken on … um … a new look look for these overseas conferences. Dani has definitely exceeded what I thought a girl could do playing Mr. Maxwell.

The good thing was that I could actually get this dress zipped up. When we do overseas conferences we ask local people to help find skit props. Some Asian people are kind of … um, small! [smile]

Small groups!

This picture is of Reena (in white), a 26-yr old girl who is now engaged, sharing with my small group about how the Lord had changed her thinking in the area of purity and relationships. The girls loved hearing her share, and it was really a provision from the Lord to have her with us!

Dads praying for their daughters

Moms praying for their daughters

“Cool down” time with staff and those who had helped to host the conference, sharing stories.

Eating pizza and ice cream with flavors we don’t get in the States…red bean, durian, jackfruit …

This is something else we were eating that I’m going to miss! … it’s a soft bean curd desert with a sweet syrup-like sauce.

There is so much more to share, I feel that this is a very inadequate representation of the Singapore conferences. Right now we are in Australia. It has been an extremely full week and blogging hasn’t been top priority, but I will definitely be posting more reports soon. Sarah and Nickie are packing suitcases now as I write this. We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning to fly home.

It doesn’t feel like Christmas yet, especially since I have a sunburn! We’ve had an amazing trip, and we are going home to snowy Iowa for Christmas with full hearts of gratefulness and awesome memories. More reports coming soon.

The Strong in the Lord conference last weekend

View from the parking lot of the church

There’s nothing better to prepare you for an Alaska Bright Lights conference than reindeer sausage for breakfast, right?! (Thanks again, Mr. Vassar! )

Just as attendees were beginning to arrive the easel fell over. Here Sarah is discovering that one of the lights broke. Thankfully Simon (son of one of the host families) got it all fixed in time.

Bryant simultaneously fixing a broken harp string …

Stephen meeting with the sound man from the church before the conference started

We had barely any problems with sound at this conference since Stephen was there. He has always had a way of fixing things that go wrong, so his presence at a conference removes a lot of stress from the rest of us.

Not to mention he even brought us Starbucks mochas to split up … a very appreciated surprise!

And he gets us all laughing … (this picture was taken at the Vassar’s house after the conference).

But back to the conference. Here’s Sarah, a girl in the Alaska Bright Lights group, arriving at the conference Saturday morning. (The sun doesn’t rise until about 10am so this was the first time we’ve had people arrive at a BL conference Sat. morning in the dark!)

Morning devotions in the small groups … (which includes balloon popping).

Kelly Jo, an attendee from a couple hours away, really bonded with Abby, her small group leader. It was a difficult goodbye!

Although there were new challenges and new obstacles in Alaska, we are going to look back on our time time there as a time we really saw the Lord work. For example, here is something a very honest father wrote on his response form:

“[The conference] reinforced that my responsibility as a father is so huge, and I am failing so bad, a lot of head knowledge not as much heart, time is running out … Please pray that I would make the decision to truly serve the Lord with my whole life, I’ve been serving two masters and my family is suffering because of it, that’s not my intent but that’s what’s happening.”

We also had some special opportunities outside the conferences. Our team went over to the home of Vangie (a girl in Alaska who joined our team for the week) to sing for her father, who has been in a wheelchair/bed for many years. Though our team went over hoping to be a blessing to him, but it turned out that Mr. and Mrs. Alexander were such a blessing to our team! They shared many stories about how the Lord has been their rock through the difficult times they have gone through. There were quite a few tears that afternoon!

It was so sweet to see how excited Bethany, Bekah’s little sister, was as they picked Bekah up at the airport.

We are flying out tomorrow morning for Singapore. Bekah and Danielle both were not feeling well over the 2 days we were home … we’d appreciate prayer for health / rest on the plane and also for opportunities to be a light.

Karen and Elizabeth greeting people as they arrived.

The conference went smoothly and I heard many good reports from the small group times. Praise the Lord. We always enjoy running the conference at home where so many local friends are able to come.

Pictured here is Sarah leading a minute of silent prayer, encouraging the girls to commit to reading the Bible every day–even if it is just for a few minutes. We are always encouraged by the many girls who make this commitment.

“Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them. The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for thy commandments. Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name. Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep thy precepts. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; and teach me thy statutes” (Psalm 119:129-135).

Below is a slideshow of pictures from the Carrollton, Texas “Strong in the Lord conference.” We took one photo an hour (from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM) to show how Wednesday progressed. We were excited to see the Lord working in many people’s lives.

The Strong in the Lord conference in Carrollton, Texas, began this evening. We have seen many answers to prayer in regards to this conference – and would definitely appreciate prayer tomorrow!

I will try to post an update about the Radiant Purity conference in Topeka from last weekend soon.

Tonight we concluded the “Strong in the Lord” Conference in Topeka, Kansas. All went very well – praise the Lord! I thought you would enjoy seeing some of the pictures Stephen took of the skits and testimonies. The Radiant Purity Conference starts Friday. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Last week was an exciting week of conferences at Straitgate Church in Minneapolis. We really appreciated being able to use this beautiful facility and enjoyed working with the great people at the church.

But the conference was not without difficulties! Difficulties are good, though. They cause us to pray more, and it builds our faith as we see the Lord work things out for good!

A few days before the conference my dad and brother became aware that the church was located in a dangerous part of Minneapolis. (This picture is of the church’s fenced-in parking lot.) When Stephen looked up the crime record in the area he became quite concerned, and he said that if he had known he’s not sure he would have agreed to do the conference there. Dad and Stephen are very protective, and they didn’t want to be responsible for any problems while 400 moms and daughters came to this area of town.

My dad felt that the principle found in Deut 22:8 applied in this situation, and he wanted to take whatever precautions we could. First, we sent out an e-mail to everyone registered, asking them to park in the lot (not on the street), not leave valuables in car, carpool if possible, and other things like that.

Here we are dividing up phone numbers among the leaders who were helping us set up on Monday. We checked and saw that about 80 attendees hadn’t opened the e-mail about security precautions. So we decided to make contact another way…i.e. lots of phone calls!

We also hired a policeman. He was really nice!

And we were very grateful for the help of a group of young men (especially the Watson brothers) who directed parking, escorted the moms and girls, and patrolled the area. Even though there were some other interesting people around in the neighborhood, the presence of our team of young men, our new officer friend, and of course God’s hand of protection made everything safe even when it was at 9pm when we dismissed.

Dad dismissing the audience and giving directions

It seemed like there were a lot more dads there than usual. We thought this was great, because we LOVE it when dads come. We think it’s beneficial for them to hear what their wives and daughters are learning. My dad also leads the small group time with the men and they seem to always have great discussions.

We had such a great group of attendees.

Our friend Mindy Caron (right) and the group she brought to the Radiant Purity Conference from northern Minnesota. At the Radiant Purity conference she told the encouraging story of how God brought her and her husband Ben together.

Backstage

Josie Morris, Ruth Watson, Mrs. Watson, and Mrs. Kramer in the kitchen. They worked really hard and made it very special…even making homemade applesauce and other homemade snacks.

After each conference we always have a cool down time to share stories over dinner. While I was taking this picture, Laurie (in green) was sharing about one 8-year-old girl in her small group (who was from the neighborhood and part of the church’s bus ministry) who contemplatively asked, “So you are saying that when my brother does something mean I am supposed to do something nice to him in return?” It’s really encouraging to see the lessons “click” with the girls.

Our group of leaders

We had a fantastic place to sleep. Mrs. Issac opened her home to all of us–with lots of loving care besides. Thank you again, Issac family! Here we are on having a special “singing” time together with the Bright Lights group that regularly meets in their home.

There are some *interesting* parts of living with so many other girls in a basement for a week. It’s fun, but you also learn things like:
-how to get completely ready in the morning without even stepping in a bathroom
-how to fall asleep with earphones in and the lights on
-how to turn the water on and off during your shower to reserve water, while also making your shower really fast!
-How to take showers at odd times…like Stephen, who had to take showers at 3:30am! (He and my parents were sleeping on the top level while the rest of us had the basement.)

BUT, these things are all an improvement from icy cold showers (we still love you, our Wisconsin friends, though! And we’d still come back if you invited us! haha ) and it’s better than traveling to other houses for showers (although there are some blessings in that too!)

We thought this sign in one of the bathrooms of the Issac’s house (where we stayed) was especially appropriate!

There are many little practical things we learn after living for a good portion of the summer with LOTS of other sisters. We have finally learned a big secret that makes mornings much more pleasant: no one is allowed to set their alarm clock on their cell phone. Instead, someone individually wakes people up at the time they request to be woken up. (They even made me turn off mine which is really cool and sounds like a tropical jungle! ) Otherwise, we just have way too many weird sounding noises going off in the morning…(i.e. a rooster, a frog, annoying bells, praise songs, you get the idea.) And SOME PEOPLE (okay, myself included) don’t even wake up to their own alarm clock half the time even though most everybody else does.

Ah…fun memories.

Well, to everyone who prayed for us: THANK YOU. There are so many more stories that I don’t have time or space to record. We are so privileged to serve the King of the Universe who has good plans, good lessons for us to learn, and who provides for us just what we need for what lays in our path.

“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.” Psalm 145:3-4

The Strong in the Lord Conference here in Willoughby Hills, Ohio ended Wednesday evening. Thank you to all who prayed for the video taping. There was a lot of joy among our group as we learned how well the taping went and as we heard about the little miracles that happened behind the scenes on the technical side of things. The conference itself went very well and we have been so encouraged by the feedback.

The Radiant Purity conference here starts in a few hours.

Please pray that the Lord works in hearts and lives– that His kindness (Rom 2:4) leads many to make the decision to surrender entirely to Jesus. We’d appreciate prayer for the small group discussions, main sessions, singing, skits, and all the other behind the scenes details…

And thank you for all of you who have been praying for our team. In our team devotional time this morning, Sarah was mentioning to us how it was such a huge blessing that there has been such joy and love in the group even though many are quite tired by this time. It’s so refreshing to be in a group where the atmosphere is one of joy and praise to God vs complaining — and we definitely attribute this to God’s grace!

“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” (1 Thess 3:12-13)

The first conference here in Willoughby Hills, Ohio (near Cleveland) starts tonight.

Stephen flew in three good friends who are very experienced with video (Andrew Baskerville from our town and Daniel and Samuel Roberts from Alabama) to tape the conference.

We would appreciate prayer about this. It is a major effort to gather the crew, set up all the equipment, practice the skits with the video crew, work through lots of misc. details, and finally shoot the conference. And all kinds of things can go wrong – from lighting to sound to equipment failures to missed lines or sickness or crying babies!

Please pray for us, and for the video crew. It would be so exciting to have this available to reach more young ladies. We can’t go to more than six cities a year for live Bright Lights conferences but with video each Bright Lights group would be able to host their own small conference.

“Thy God hath commanded thy strength: strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us.” Psalm 68:28

I thought I’d post a few more pictures from our last set of conferences in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Omaha, Nebraska.

Conference attendees!

Sarah sharing about guarding your heart

Hannah and Stephen

The kitchen always becomes the popular gathering place for our team of leaders. Here we are eating bran muffins and smoothies brought over by Mrs. Kolar, who hosted the conference.

We really appreciated Lindsay (left) and her very sweet and enthusiastic Bright Lights group. They brought our team some snacks one afternoon.

…and we REALLY enjoyed them. Right, Lilly?

We also really appreciated the families that hosted the conferences in Wisconsin! Here is our team with several girls from Serena Kamp’s Bright Lights group at a 4th of July cookout.

On the 4th of July our group of leaders (about 20 girls) went to a local small town parade and passed out our little tracts called “The Price of Liberty” about how just as our freedom was purchased through the blood of soldiers who gave their lives, our spiritual freedom with God was purchased through the blood of Jesus Christ. Hannah (red shirt) got into a very good conversation with these girls about the gospel and how one can know they have peace with God.

Here is the shower schedule for our team of leaders. It’s a little different living with 15-20 girls for two weeks! But we don’t know what we would do without the great team of girls that God has brought together to help us lead the conferences. We have a lot of good times together!

We also appreciated many girls who were local to the area who helped as assistants on small groups.

And THIS is the spider that gave me and Nickie a very…um…exciting wake-up one morning. It looked quite a bit bigger with it was alive and standing up just inches from Nickie’s pillow.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we are looking forward to seeing what God has in store for our next trip to Pennslyvania and Ohio. We are leaving in three days now!