I'm Back!

Oh my goodness, I have soo much to say! Let's just start by saying the conference was AMAZING! John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and CJ Mahaney are living giants of our faith and I am sooo blessed to have the opportunity to listen to them speak. I gleaned so much great information not only to apply to the Children's Ministry at Grace, but also on how to raise my own child up in the faith, and my own personal walk. I can't explain how awesome what these men had to say was!





The conference itself was held at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, MN because it has outgrown Bethlehem Baptist (Piper's church). This church was HUGE (pics above). The sanctuary alone was probably a good 2.5 times bigger than the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center! And then there were all the lobbies, classrooms...unreal. A bit big for my tastes, but the Children Desiring God Conference has gotten too big for anywhere else. There were 1,121 people, representing 11 different countries!

Baby Boy Gibson was quiet as could be, sleeping soundly during much of the day...during the very awesome, and professional (and loud) worship music, during various other seminars...but whenever John Piper or CJ Mahaney spoke, he suddenly wouldn't sit still! Jumping around, kicking, and rolling all over the place! It actually became so obvious that he liked these men (they're voices? the tone in their speaking?) that I couldn't help but just watch my belly and laugh to myself. My son the theologian...

Saturday night we went to Bethlehem Baptist in downtown Minneapolis and then Sunday Morning, sat in on some of the Sunday School classes at Bethlehem's North Campus (they have three campuses, for a total of about 4,000 members). Can I just tell you how amazing their curriculum is? And how my mouth literally dropped when the THREE YEAR OLDS would recite (pretty long) bible verses from memory....including book and verse??? They can't even read!!! The whole congregation does these "Fighter Verses" which is a booklet of over 550 verses, and everyone just rattles them off like nothing! The church's goal is to have a child go through the entire Sunday School program, and have them all memorized...sounds crazy, but they all do! It's insane! Amazing how much we underestimate our children...

We spent a few hours at Mall of America. I know this sounds silly, but once you get past all the roller coasters and Lego Land in the center, it's really just a big...mall. The shops are all standard mall shops you find anywhere else...they're just all in one place. You know how in So. Cal. you might have some stores in one mall, and then maybe have to go to a different mall to get Store X? Well, this is really just one giant one-stop-shop. I guess I thought there would be a lot of different stores that you don't have in California...but they were all stuff that you could get back here (although it might require a drive). I don't know, a little anti-climactic for me.

We met up with Betsy Jeffries for about a half hour (our schedules conflicted) but it was nice to see a familiar face on the other side of the country. The weather was gorgeous, but from what I was told, it was probably the only 3 days out of the year that Minnesota will be that nice. It's a nice state, but I found myself appreciating California (ok, the central coast) more and more the longer I was there. There is certainly beauty, but it's just not SLO/Santa Barbara County.

I'm home from work sick. Picked up a pretty nasty respiratory infection, and had to go to the doctor this morning. I swear my immune system has just turned off since I've been pregnant...and I usually NEVER get sick! In fact, both the nurse and the doctor commented on how it had been 3.5 years since I had been there! Oh well, only 11 more weeks!