SECOND DAY OF THE 135TH BFC ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Tuesday morning dawned bright and beautiful.  I just loved looking out the window at the lake each day.

We got ready for the day and then headed to breakfast.  I had scrambled eggs and bacon.  After we ate we went to the first meeting.  Again, the singing was wonderful.

The message was brought by Pastor Bertolet.  He spoke on "Building a Church with a Building" from Ephesians 4:11-16.  It was fantastic.  I took so many notes.

Following the message we had prayer and then took a break.  Instead of staying for the business part of the meeting, I went back to the room to take a nap.  I ended up not sleeping, but doing other things like reading and straightening up the room.

We brought snacks with us so we wouldn't be eating a lot of sugary things that we shouldn't.  But I did take a container of fresh veggies from the meeting to snack on.  The other snacks we had were Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips and Tomato Basil Lentils.

Each of the delegates was given a commemorative mug and a bag of coffee flavored with chocolate and citrus.  It smells good.  Joe hasn't tried it yet, but I'm sure he will.  I don't drink coffee.

I took some pictures of the room to show you.  This was the double bed, but it was so small that both of us couldn't sleep in it.  Joe gave me the bed.

He took the bottom bunk.  We stored our things on the top bunk.

Here is the bathroom.  It is better than the first one we had and certainly adequate for the time we were there.

It's a tiny room, but plenty of space for us.

It was always a pretty view out of the window.

Here are the steps that I maneuvered each day.

The brook was next to our building.

This is the Fellowship Hall where the meetings took place.

I was walking over to the Dining Hall for lunch when I decided to take this picture for you.  There were lots of pine cones.

There were pine cones all over the place.  I guess that's where the name Pinebrook comes from.

Here's the Dining Hall.

I usually walked around this way to get there and took a break on the benches.  My arthritis was so bad and between the steps and the walking
I was having a hard time navigating the place.  I was in a lot of pain the entire time.  But it was all worth it.

I took these pictures as I was sitting on one of the benches.  The sky was so beautiful.

I look for the crooked tree each year when I am there.

These flowers were planted under the tree.

There are two big pots of flowers outside of the Dining Hall.  So pretty.

And Joe's favorite flower -- daffodils -- outside of the Dining Hall.

Looking back toward our cabin.

 Lunch was Mexican food.  I can't eat it so I had the salad bar instead.  They had some really nice things on it and I didn't go hungry for sure.

On the way into Fellowship Hall after lunch I saw this hanging on the wall by the garden.  I had to get a shot of it.

The Children's Garden outside of the hall.

In the afternoon Pastor Ramirez from La Roca de Merida in Mexico gave the message.  It was "Building a Church Without a Building."

Joe and Pastor at the meeting.

There was more business and this time I did go take a nap.  I slept for about an hour, then went to dinner.  I had fish, mixed vegetables and a roll.

Then we went to the evening meeting where we were ordaining four men and recognizing the ordination of two others.  It was so crowded with the friends and families of the men that I had to sit on the other side of the room.  My friend, Sharon, finally found me and sat with me.  I was so fortunate to meet up with Sharon.  We spent the whole week together and enjoyed each other's company so much.  She was even at the service when Joe and I renewed our wedding vows back in 2016 so we've known each other for quite awhile.  Sharon is one of the nicest people I have ever met.

There was a reception afterwards but once again Joe and I just headed back to the room.  We were tired.  And besides, we were avoiding the cake.  There were five cakes in the three days we were there.  Not great for a diabetic.  So instead we just got ready for bed and tried to get a good night's sleep to be ready for day three.

And that's where I will end this post.  More to come!

Kathy

THE FIRST DAY OF THE 135TH BFC ANNUAL CONFERENCE -- Part Two

Continuing from yesterday...
We checked into Pinebrook (or as our GPS called it "Pin-E-brook" ... ha, ha!).  When we went into the Guest Services Building, we met our friend Sean.  He lives in Chicago now so it was great to see him.  Our new Elder, Bob, was also in there.  We checked in, got our keys and headed for the room.  We didn't know that the room would be so high with so many steps to get to it.  But the view of the lake was just gorgeous!

I was able to drive up to the room, unload the car, and then park it on the grass across the street.  Then it was time for dinner.

I had chicken Florentine, green beans and a roll.  Everything was good.  At least we got dinner this year.  The first year we were too late for dinner and went right to the meeting.

After we ate, we went to Fellowship Hall for the first meeting.  Joe and Pastor Ralph were on the aisle at the table farthest back.  At all but one of the meetings I was able to sit a couple of rows behind them in the seats for those who were not delegates.  Here's a picture of Joe.

A few minutes later Pastor joined him.  I laughed when I saw this picture because the light behind Pastor's head makes it look as if he has a halo.

The meeting began with prayer by Pastor Grossman who was the moderator. Our theme this year was "Onward and Outward" and we celebrated 70 years of Church Extensions -- establishing new churches.

We were welcoming two new churches into the denomination.  This is a view of some of the pastors and elders who were the delegates.

The singing is always great at the Conference.

The service was done in both English and Spanish since we were welcoming our first Hispanic church in the U.S.  (We have two churches in Mexico.) Our speaker was Pastor Schlonecker and his message was translated into Spanish by Pastor Ramos.  It was great that this was done.  But it took a long time since basically the message was preached twice.  And since I understand quite a bit of Spanish I heard it twice.

One of our new churches is Northern Lehigh BFC.

Some of their members were there to celebrate.

And our first Hispanic church in the U.S., La Roca de Reading.  Pastor Rodriguez spoke in Spanish and his son Diego translated into English for him.

La Roca de Reading brought about 70 people with them to celebrate.  It was quite a crowd up front.

There was a reception afterwards, but it was getting late and Joe and I were beat so we just went back to the room.  It was a good first day.

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And now for the news on my tooth.  I went to the office, took about a half-hour filling out the paperwork and then was told I needed to pay in full the amount of the extraction right then.  I didn't know that and didn't have the money.  Finally we arranged that they would have a copy of my card and put in the payment this afternoon after I had gone home and transferred some money into the account.

I was finally taken back to the room and was given some more paperwork to sign giving consent to have the tooth extracted.  I told the nurse I was really scared.  Then the doctor came in.  He was very young, but very nice.  He explained everything to me and asked me some questions.  By this time I was so scared I was shaking and had tears in my eyes.  Then they took my blood pressure.  He looked at it and asked if I had high blood pressure.  I told him I did and was taking medication.  He said, "I know you are scared, but it's a little high.  Let's take it again and I'll leave the room this time."  So that's what happened.  When he came back in it was still very high.  He didn't tell me what the first one was, but the second one was 148/96.  And it had come down some.  He told me I needed to see my doctor first, he would not pull my tooth because my pressure was so high I could have a stroke or heart attack on the table.  I already had an appointment with my doctor on Monday afternoon, so I have to see what she says and call them on Tuesday.  The doctor also suggested I have general anesthesia because I am so scared.

Thank you everyone for praying for me.  I'll need those prayers for another day for sure.  I appreciate and love all of you.

And now to get to bed and get some sleep for another day tomorrow.

Kathy

THE FIRST DAY OF THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE - Part one

Hello everyone!  I am back.  Just got home today and glad to be here.  I loved being away but there really is no place like home.  We had a wonderful time at the conference.  I will try to share it all with you.

We left Philadelphia around 10:00 a.m. on Monday and headed to my sister's house.  We were going to have lunch with her since it was her day off.  That worked out so great!  We stopped for gas and got to her house around 12:15 p.m.

 We love visiting Elaine.  Her home is always so welcoming.  Lunch wasn't quite ready so we had time to just sit and chat for awhile.

Don't you just love this little antique sewing chest she has?  She always finds the cutest things.

And here's Ace, her new little puppy.  He has more energy than any dog I've ever seen.  And he LOVES to play ball.  If you visit, you had better be prepared to throw that ball for him.

We left there about 2:00 p.m. because we had another hour's drive to get to the Conference Center.

It was so easy to pick up Route 80 from Elaine's house and head back to Pennsylvania.  Funny but it was easier to go to New Jersey and then back into Pennsylvania than to stay in the state for the entire way.

The scenery was gorgeous as we drove along.  But Joe was sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up to take pictures.  But here's a few pictures I got from Google.

As I was driving I passed a sign for a Scenic Lookout.  Since we had plenty of time, I decided to stop.  It was up a pretty steep road, but well worth it.  I got out of the car and took these pictures.

When I showed these pictures to Joe he asked where I took them.  He had slept through the whole thing and didn't even know I had stopped at the Lookout.  😊

We finally arrived at Pinebrook after passing it, pulling into someone's driveway and turning around and going back.  It was good to get there.

We checked in and went to our room.  It was in the Nearbrook Building.  It was near the brook, yes.  But also up a long steep flight of stairs.  Those stairs were not nice to my arthritic knees.  But I did it for two and a half days and lived to tell the tale.  Next year we have to ask for something a little less wearing on me.  That was my only complaint the entire time I was there.  Everything else was great.

This was the view from our room.  It was beautiful to wake up to.

This is getting really long and it's getting very late.  I have to get up early tomorrow to go to a dentist I've never met and have a tooth extracted.  I am not happy and rather frightened if truth be told.  I have lots of people praying for me and if you would care to add your prayers to theirs I would be most grateful.  I will tell you about the rest of the day tomorrow.  It's nighty-night for me.

Kathy