Talk about a weekend!

We had the best weekend! My Mom was raised in the most wonderful church in the most beautiful small town in Tennessee about 2 1/2 hours from where I live and we had a women's conference there this past weekend. My family still attends church there and on any given Sunday they may have around 100 in their service. Every time I visit there I walk in and breathe in the smell of childhood church memories and think "this is certainly God's house and I should come back here more often". Don't you just LOVE the smells of childhood?! My cousin, Julie, is the new women's ministry director along with being librarian and other things at church. Her mom, my Aunt Bobbie (my moms sister) is also VERY active there. They travel the county and surrounding counties together singing in churches...they have the most unbelievable God given southern gospel voices! Anyway, Julie has a HUUGGEEE heart for the women of her community and her church. She teaches the women's Sunday School class and I can tell that they just love her.

This is Julie singing, below, with Cindy Wishert. Cindy is the Worship Minister's wife and we got so many blessings from meeting her. She is deaf and signed when Julie sang "I'd Rather Have Jesus". Every time I looked at Cindy she had a smile on her face.....it was a 'yes' face. Read about having a 'yes' face in the new book by Charles Swindoll called The Grace Awakening. Anyway, Cindy is an amazing amazing woman.

My dear dear friend, Shellie Hochstetler, is also a speaker...Women's Conferences, Sunday School Classes and Church Services etc. She really has the gift of teaching what God has taught her in life. I've always told Julie and Shellie that they really needed to meet each other because they are soooooooo much alike it's almost scary. Two peas in a pod I always tell them. They both have 4 children with wonderful loving husbands. They love to camp. The both teach women. They love the country and horses. There is more but the biggest thing is that they both love their Lord and Savior and have a life devoted to teaching women about Him.

From left to right:

Aunt Bobbie, Shellie, & Julie

It was such a pleasure to help organize this conference with Julie (of course I was here so she and Bobbie did most of the work..I just got Shellie there in my car). But it turned out to be so much more than we could have ever imagined it would be. I mean, we all know that God can do amazing things but we really only expected about half of the women that signed up to actually be there. And we really thought that they would be quiet and reserved and shy to participate but they really opened up as women and made baby steps toward a bigger picture of God's will. It was the most amazing women's conference I have been to in a very long time. I just LOVE to see God at work! I told Shellie on the way home that I am now dedicated to making sure she gets to talk to as many women as she can. That woman is gifted!

This is Shellie with my mom, Ann.

This is my Granny! :O) Isn't she precious?!

One of the verses that Shellie talked about this weekend was:
Micah 7: 7&8 7But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
8Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.

To all you women out there.....do you know that if you see or know a woman that is distressed or having troubles in their marriage or with an addiction or with whatever it may be that you, as a fellow sister in Christ, are RESPONSIBLE for helping her. As a sister in Christ you are responsible for taking her and helping her heal. We are on this earth to spread the wonderful word about Christ and to help and support each other as children of the King. If you were going thru something wouldn't you want someone to reach out to you? If you ARE going thru troubles, you are not alone. God's word says in

2 Corinthians 1: 3-5
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
Girls, we are responsible for each other. We are responsible for teaching other women about God and all He means to us and we are responsible for helping if another sister is in need.

Shellie's ministry is called Ripple Effects and you can reach her at kamc4@bellsouth.net or check out her new blog, He's Enough, at http://www.rippleeffectsministry.blogspot.com/ .
God Bless You!