Last weekend, Sarah, my dad, myself, and the four Bright Lights interns went up to Minneapolis for the MACHE homeschool conference…
Setting up our booth the day before
With over 6,000 attendees, the convention hall kept pretty busy.
I don’t know what we would have done without the help of our four interns!
Sarah giving her session called “Raising Daughters who are Pure in a Generation of Darkness”
Before our session on “Developing a Family Ministry” my dad informed us of some bad news. Our projector was missing. It had been left at the house we were staying — a half hour a way. Not good. We were relying heavily on the powerpoint because we had just revamped our whole talk and we really needed our powerpoint to help it stay connected and smooth. And with three speakers it can be especially difficult to keep it flowing in a clear way.
My dad asked all the other speakers at the conference if they had an extra projector we could borrow, but nothing was available. Finally he resorted to the least desirable option — driving all the way back to our host home. Our session was beginning in just over an hour now. We were cutting it close. After arriving at the house, my dad called again with more bad news. “I can’t find it. I’ve looked everywhere.”
Sarah and I dropped what we were doing and prayed.
Five minutes later the phone rang again and I could tell by the relief on Sarah’s face that my dad had good news this time. “I found it. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before–it was right there in the middle of the room.”
Next we needed to tune the harp (which we use during the chalk talk), and guess what? Our tuner was in the van that Dad had taken. Thankfully, Dad arrived about 15 minutes before the talk and we were able to tune, set up, get everything ready and start the session really fast. Whew!
The session went especially well, and many shared very encouraging comments about how the Lord used it to change their perspective. Praise the Lord.
I love looking back and seeing the Lord’s hand in taking care of so many little details!
Dinner at Chipotle!
Thank you Buller family for the very nice time we had at your house!
After church, my mom called with urgent news that we couldn’t come home because of the weather. Apparently the snow storm hit right in between Minneapolis and Cedar Rapids, and everyone at our church back home was very concerned after looking online at the weather. So, we decided to “drop in” on some more friends instead of coming home.
We called the Lenz’s and they graciously opened their home even at such late notice. We enjoyed eating several dozen eggs from their farm 🙂 (among other things), ice cream, and enjoyed great fellowship…
And, of course, we had to pull out the instruments and have a singing time.
After a good night’s sleep, a great breakfast, and a refreshing hike through the cornfields, we hit the road again.
We made it about 5 minutes down the road…and the van broke a belt. We stopped and prayed. My dad called Lenz’s and got the number of their mechanic, who said he happened to be only 5 minutes away (even though he lives in another town) and he’d come take a look. Wow- how convenient! After he looked it over, it was decided that my dad would drive the van to his shop to get it fixed. I was wondering what all of us girls would do while we waited…especially since everyone was getting hungry for lunch.
We passed a Panera Breads.
“Dad–there was a Panera back there! Can you drop us off?” I asked.
“Well, I could stop right here and you can walk back to it,” he offered (he was following the mechanic).
“K guys let’s go!” I said and we all grabbed our computers and bags, rolled out of the van (almost), and walked through the cold back to Panera, laughing. Panera was a great place to get some e-mails sent and enjoy a relaxing lunch as we waited for the van to be fixed.
My dad had a chance to speak with the mechanic about the Lord and he left him (and the secretary at his shop) with a few of our books.
Each trip is different and unique. Each one is usually characterized by hard work and various problems to work out. But those problems turn into blessings and opportunities when we trust God–the One who’s really “running the show”.
“And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
The first day was an intense (and wonderfully rich!) time of training from Living Waters Staff. Over the weekend we heard from Toni Miano, Ray Comfort, Emeal “E.Z.” Zwayne, Stuart “Scotty” Scott, Mark Spence, and Kirk Cameron…
Here was our group doing open air preaching in Hollywood. Wow–what an experience! It was like a zoo! 
We often used trivia questions to draw a crowd and then shared the gospel. I admit, I never seriously pictured myself doing this. 🙂 But it’s true– you can speak to more unsaved people during one open-air session then you may reach in a whole year if you simply try to invite people to various church evangelistic events. It’s certainly a Biblical approach as Jesus, Paul, Peter, and many others preached in the open air… and it still works today. Also, it seems that people are especially curious to know what young people have to say. And with trivia questions, illustrations, etc. it’s not as difficult as we may imagine. 
Open air preaching at Hunington Beach. 
This was an exciting conversation. These girls understood that they were lost sinners and were anxious to know the way to be saved. We had a long talk and they left with enthusiasm. It was very encouraging. 
There were fifty in our class. It was so refreshing to be around fifty other people with a passion to win the lost. The fellowship was wonderful.
