Strong in the Lord Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Here’s Bryant putting together packages of the Bright Lights Songbook and CD for our booktable at the conferences. We had to resort to our old system of shrink wrapping using an iron since our shrink wrapper broke!

Tuesday moring, our team of leaders gathered for “teacher’s training”, sharing in the Word, and prayer. These are always encouraging times! It’s always refreshing to hear the special verses that have encouraged the other leaders as they have spent time with the Lord preparing for the conference.

Here is the “Folly / Wisdom Skit” in the first main session. This skit tells the story of Wisdom, a girl making good decisions based on an eternal perspective, compared to Folly who just does what feels good.

We gathered as a group of leaders for “cool down” after the first evening to share encouraging stories and prayer requests.

Bekah and Karissa were very dramatic in acting the skit of the two sisters who could not get along…they did a great job.

Enjoying “the pyramid activity!” in small group time as we talked about brothers and sisters learning to be teammates and work together.

The “Dead Conscience Sisters,” reviewing their skit lines backstage. We enjoyed having Laura (Nickie’s sister) on our team again this time! Since she has two kids now she can’t travel with us anymore but she was able to help since the conference was local.

We all love the relationships we are able to make with the girls in our small group teams.

One of the most encouraging things for us is to hear testimonies of lives the Lord touched through the conference. I thought I’d share a few comments we recieved:

“I am going to try to read the Bible for 15 min or a chapter every day. I am also going to try to honor my parents and be kinder to my sister.” -13-year-old girl

“My oldest daughter already has her Bible reading plan commitment in place! My 8 year-old told me last night that she is SO happy and that she feels like a new person inside, 🙂 , and maybe this is what it feels like to really BE a Christian. What joy! ” -Mom

“We were at the Bright Lights conference this past Tuesday and Wednesday. We so enjoyed ourselves… I was especially blessed when my 10 year old daughter approached me yesterday morning to tell me of some things that were weighing on her conscience.” -Mom

We are so grateful for those who have upheld this conference in prayer. The Radiant Purity Conference which followed also went wonderfully, and I will report about that soon. We are now in MN preparing for the next Strong in the Lord Conference which begins tomorrow evening. Please pray that hearts would be changed at these next two conferences.