Weekend to Remember...

We've got a prayer letter coming out soon, but we thought we'd blog a few of the highlights from the Weekend to Remember that just might not make it in. The conference was full of so many highlights for us but I've already struggled enough to write the prayer letter so I'm just going to blurt all the other stuff out (please excuse any poor grammar and excessive use of parentheses).

It was great because: we were back in the Northwest, it was at the site of the first Weekend to Remember that we had ever been to, we had lots of friends/family/and supporters there, it was our first time ever doing the Peacemaker Alumni session which was fabulous material and a great Speaker/co-worker of ours that we'll get to spend more time with in the future (he's in charge of what FamilyLife is doing in the Middle East and we hope to help him with it somehow) (also regarding Peacemakers, FamilyLife is offering for us to take a 5 part PeaceMakers training focusing on Peacemaking in our own lives, in the church, and helping others with Marriage Reconciliation)...carrying on, it was also great because we got to eat seafood (call us crazy, but we're scared to order "fresh fish" anywhere that's more than 500 miles from the ocean), the local volunteer team was great to work with and eager to serve, Ross felt that he learned a lot about how we can improve in some of his on-site roles, and we got to help some couples out that may have slipped through the cracks- two examples:

after doing the HomeBuilders training, Ross noticed a couple in the Resource center that seemed to be weighing between buying some Parenting books or a HomeBuilders starter kit (to start hosting a group). You could tell that money was tight but they were going to really get good use out of the Resources. When Ross visited with them, they said that they were wanting to start leading a HomeBuilders group with their young-married's friends because they both had come from a broken home and most of their friends had as well. They said that they wanted to start a group to help these young marriages get started on a firm foundation. Ross got to give them the Resources for free and they started crying-it was sweet. Another cool one was a couple that were both Spanish speaking and struggled a lot with the English language. It was pretty inspiring to see how they worked so hard just to understand what was being said and they were translating it for each other. We got to visit with them (what a sweet, joyful couple) and now we're trying to track down some marriage resources in Spanish so that they can do more marriage ministry in their church.

Best of all, there were 22 people who said that they received Christ at the conference, and 100 more recommitted their lives and families to God. Here's one last comment from a lady who attended: “We were so fragmented, past the walking wounded, we were the walking dead…but [we were] still going to church and trusting that God’s protection was there in our own individual lives, protecting us from the enemy [and] each other. Your instruction and the Holy Spirit showed us God’s divine design for marriage. What a revelation.” ~Administrative Assistant, married 3 years

Praise God!