Michigan Home School Conference

Well, I am happy to announce we survived yet another conference without Stephen. Not with ease, but God took care of us!

The first little scare was when my dad somehow got knocked to the ground by automatic doors that he wasn’t expecting to open outward. That was when I began texting friends for prayer, haha. Dad was fine, just a little startled. We thought “Oh my, I hope this isn’t a taste of what the whole convention is going to be like!”

The next scare is when we realized our computers were wet. It was raining for most of the travel day and when we arrived we found that a vent in the trailer had come open. Here Sarah is calling Stephen and getting his advice. Praise the Lord the computers still worked and only a few books were damaged!

Here are Sarah and I making last minute adjustments on a session on family ministry. While Sarah and I were sitting here working, we looked over at dad and noticed that he had literally fallen asleep while he was typing a text! Poor dad.

The Martin family was presenting eleven sessions during this conference, so we praise the Lord for giving them the strength to get through the weekend!

We’re excited that they are coming to our home tomorrow, so we will finally get a chance to talk with them (instead of just being in the same building but too busy to talk)! For those who live in the area, Mr. Martin will be speaking at our church (Cedar Rapids Bible Chapel, 3412 Oakland Road NE, Cedar Rapids) in two days (Wednesday, May 20) at 7:00 pm on “Astounding Evidence for Special Creation” and at 8:00 pm on “Developing Discernment in our Culture of Deception.” Mr. Martin is a very interesting speaker, and if you come I do not think you will be disappointed!

We were very blessed by meeting the Nachtman family and hearing of their heart for evangelism / discipleship. In fact, we learned that Mr. Nachtman lives in the same area as a man that my dad has been trying to disciple, so Mr. Nachtman is going to help! This is a very neat story in itself that I will have to post another time.

I really enjoyed getting acquainted with Valerie and Jason who are the Living Waters representatives in Michigan.

I loved how their booth was half booth / half nursery. (Not untypical for home school conferences!)

In so many ways, we saw the Lord provide help to make up for Stephen not being with us. Another wonderful provision was all the help loading the trailer. [smile]

Todd Wilson (Family Man) and Israel Wayne (Family Renewal) were the keynote speakers at this conference. Both of their ministries are focused on strengthening families–especially dads–and we really appreciate what they are doing!

“Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it (Psalm 90:16-17).”