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