Grace Notes

Homeschool Conferences

In Cincinnati and Indianapolis

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Sarah explaining about how to use the Bright Lights material.

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Rebekah May, Sarah, Stephen, Dad, Mom, Me, Nickie Biegler, Chrissy Baskerville, Rachel May

Saturday evening after the conference in Cincinnati, we packed up, drove back to Indianapolis. We picked up the 4 girls who had run our booth for us at the Indianapolis Home School conference, and ate supper downtown Indianapolis at the Spaghetti Factory. We had a good time relaxing and sharing stories.

We were surprised at the busy night-life that downtown Indianapolis had! It was about 10:30pm, and there were traffic jams, busy sidewalks, and people partying everywhere. Watching the people, it was obvious that they were searching. They aren’t satisfied. We overheard a song being played talking about “meaning in life”. People don’t have it, and they are looking for it.

Homeschool Conferences

Cincinnati and Indianapolis Home School Conferences


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Nickie Biegler, Stephen, and Dad

Spring is here! For my family, spring means lots of state Home School Conferences. This weekend our family made plans to go to two Home School conferences (Indianapolis and Cincinnati) at the same time by bringing a team of Bright Lights leaders, dropping them off in Indianapolis, and then heading to Cincinnati with just our family.

We had fun setting up our booth during a thunderstorm, especially because we were setting up in a tent.

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Stephen and Dad

Last night when the conference started, a lady came to our booth and gave Sarah an encouraging report. She said, “My kids and I heard you and your brother and sister speak about sibling relationships at a conference a couple years ago. We liked the way you used skits to demonstrate what you were teaching, so we decided to come up with a skit that our family could present together, which included the gospel. At first we just did it for just a very small group, but then the kid’s grandpa saw it and got excited about it. He invited them to do it for a larger group. One time, after we had done our skit for a group of about 300 people, a lady came and told me “I turned away from God and didn’t want anything to do with Christianity. But now—after seeing your kids—I’ve decided to come back to the Lord.” When families work together as a team, it makes a powerful impact for the Lord!

Radiant Purity Conferences/Strong in the Lord Conf.

First Radiant Purity Conference!

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Something very special happened last weekend… Our first-ever Radiant Purity Conference was held in Alexandria, Minnesota! It was for girls 12 and up, and included topics such as modesty, dangers with the dating system, how to handle crushes, learning to delight in the Lord as our Prince, being open with our parents, waiting on the Lord, and having a life purpose bigger than marriage. The conference also included 2 chalk-talks, skits, wedding video clips, singing, discussion groups, and mother’s sessions.

This conference was a dream-come-true for us and many others. It was so exciting to see it all happen and see God’s hand working! Personally, I was challenged, refreshed, and exhausted when it was over.

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We brought about a dozen older girls who are leaders in our Bright Lights group in Cedar Rapids. They led the discussion groups, ran registration, worked at the book table, acted in skits, shared testimonies, led the singing, and helped with set up and tear down. We’ve all learned a lot about how to work together as a team, how to run conferences as smoothly as possible, and how to rely on God’s power.

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Hearing practical testimonies and teaching from real girl’s lives was encouraging to everyone.

I think it’s exciting to share ways we saw the Lord’s hand at work. Here are a few examples:

    – Dan Macy, who hosted the conference, found a large facility in his area that he thought would be perfect for holding a conference. As he began to work with this church, he ran into complications and things just didn’t work out. He expressed to us how it seemed like a death of a vision. Mr. Macy realized that the only way this conference could happen is if someone who attended this church would be willing to host it. He began to pray. One day as he was explaining his idea of a Bright Lights conference to another homeschool father, this father replied, “Well, I go to that church and I’d be willing to help host it and work all the details out for you!” The church facility was beautiful and worked wonderfully.
    – The Lord’s timing was perfect. Since Sarah had just written Before You Meet Prince Charming last year, it was much easier to plan the material and content for this new conference, drawing from the book.
    – Sarah had been secretly praying for 400 attendees. We had 127 register at the door, bring attendance number to 405.
    – Stephen came up with a new nifty computer system for registration at this conference. He got it all set up and trained our registrars. About a half hour before the conference as everyone started coming, the computer system crashed. Let’s just say that is not what we wanted to happen, especially with lots of people registering at the door. But the Lord came through, the computers started working, and registration went smoothly.
    – Video clips, sound, lighting, special effects and PowerPoint all worked even though they got us worried at times!
    – My mom and a good friend Kay Baskerville were teaching the mother’s sessions. As they talked about what to speak on, they found that the Lord had placed the exact same thing on both of their hearts to share with the mothers.

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Laura Sisson, Grace Mally, and Elyssa Ertz in our “Old Fashioned Skit”

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Elyssa Ertz, Laura Sisson and Nickie Biegler in a skit Friday night

Strong in the Lord Conf.

Strong in the Lord Conference

About 650 mothers and daughters gathered in Burnsville, Minnesota for our 19th Bright Lights “Strong in the Lord Conference” in Burnsville, Minnesota. God kept things exciting for us as a large snow storm began just as the conference was starting! Our group of about 20 Bright Lights leaders from Iowa got “stranded” for an extra day after the conference, but everyone arrived home safely, and we enjoyed the extra time together!

A theme verse we chose for this conference was Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” No matter what the troubles or complications arise during a conference, God is not only present, He is very present! He’s the one that gives the victory. One of the things that especially encouraged us after this conference was the large number of girls who told us they were going to start reading their Bible everyday now.

Here are a few pictures from the conference:

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