He said: Parruskia: Nyepuniamayu

It's 9:45 Pm here, time to wind down. I experienced a personal first today, and to me, it's significant. Let's hope it is to you, too. First, some serious news that I stumbled upon: It seems that the Catholic church has officially declared the Bible to be at least partially inaccurate, and is warning that anyone that thinks otherwise is dangerous. That sure warms the ecumenical cockles of my heart. Next subject.

We've been learning 2 languages simultaneously. We're mainly picking up words of Latvian, because that's what we predominantly hear. We can say "please/you're welcome" (same word), "thank you", "next stop" (from riding the trams and busses) and 6 or 8 other various words. Latvian is nearly unique. It and Lithuanian have a lot in common, and they're both islands as far as languages go: they're not latin, greek, slavic, germanic, or any other common language in their base. Anybody who knows english has a familiarity with latin and greek just from latin and greek content in english. Father/pater(latin), mother/mater; Paternity: fatherhood. So when you hear "mi padre y mi madre" you can digest it, at least a little bit, even if you don't know spanish or french or italian or portugese, which are all based very much on latin. If you do know spanish, which I do a little, then you can pick up lots of things, from lots of languages, especially if it's written down. The experts tell us, however, that the only discernable root for Latvian/Lithuanian is Sanskrit. I don't know about you, but Sanskrit is "all greek to me!". ('come on, you knew that was coming! :-)) The result is that you don't "pick up" any meaning or inference in Latvian words unless it's a newer 'borrowed' word. ('interneta cafe' isn't so difficult) You just have to learn Latvian words by rote, from scratch. So we count each new solid word as a kind of triumph.

Meanwhile, we've begun listening to an audio russian course, because while less than 2 million people on the planet speak Latvian, there are 170 million russian speakers. Like all the former Soviet states, just about everyone in Latvia speaks enough russian to converse, and a significant part of the population speaks only russian.

So this morning, I'm about to head to the grocery store with my youngest daughter, when this nice lady addresses me in complete gibberish while gesturing to Charlotte. Naturally, I looked her square in the eye and said, "Nyepuniamayu parruskia." (Russian for: "I don't understand russian.") Lesson one. Am I the bomb, or what? It turns out that she wanted to give Charlotte a handful of buckeyes, since she had seen Charlotte collecting them. I knew this, because she thrust them firmly at me, smiled, and repeatedly gestured toward Charlotte. She also babbled...very...slowly...so...that...I...couldn't...possibly...misunderstand...her. I finally caught on, took the buckeys, told her "thank you" in latvian, (Of course I know that "spaciba" is "thank you" in russian, but I couldn't find it that fast. Go figure.) and headed to the store, having used my first russian phrase. I bet I use that phrase a lot in the coming months...



Bob

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She said: Pure Religion

Bob and I got to participate in some "pure religion" this evening. Remeber, "Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this:to visit the Fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

One of our new friends took us to visit with some young children who live in a home sponsored by her charity organization that takes care of kids without parental care. We followed her across town to a huge complex of Soviet era apartment buildings, where we rode up in a tiny elevator to the eighth floor. The hallway smelled strongly of urine, but once we entered the apartment we were greeted warmly by the middle-aged plump Russian caregiver. By US standards it would be considered a small apartment, though it did have three bedrooms. There are eight kids housed here along with the matron. Everything was very clean and orderly, brightly lit, and seemed extremely cozy.

Our purpose for the visit was to meet three of the younger children, who have been invited by two unnamed ladies from Atlanta for the Christmas holidays. The children are very excited about this invite and now face the task of trying to learn some English so they can communicate their basic needs to their hostesses. We volunteered to try to help them. This first meeting was just to get acquainted, with the intention of spending some more time later on teaching them. The two little girls are eight, and the fairly smallish little dude is seven. One little girl had spent her first seven years in a large children's orphanage. She is just in the last little while accepting affection such as pats and hugs.

We took our seven year old, Charlotte with us. She played games with the kids and got on fine, yet clung to her Dad quite a bit wanting his attention. In the way of kids, she somehow sensed we were reaching out to these young kids and felt somewhat threatened. Obviously, our love and care for her was not in any danger! How much more does our Father care for us, and yet sometimes we feel threatened by His attention to others.

Bye for now,
Ellie



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He said: Not quite from scratch

I said I'd get back to it, and dutifully, here I am. In 2004, AIM'er John Turner and another AIM couple had to leave Lithuania for a time while they waited on their residence permits. They spent about 3 months here in Riga. During that time, they laid a lot of the groundwork for us to come here, and even made some key contacts. Through these contacts, we've met some very nice folks from varying Christian backgrounds. There are some very sincere people here who really want to shine the light of Christ in this great darkness. We share that desire with them. So while they're different from us, and while we sometimes have the urge to shine our light on them :-), we don't feel as though we're utterly alone. That's a good thing.

I had occasion this morning to go back and review a bunch of old NinetyAndNine Letters. Boy, that's fun! It's a little like cleaning the old letters out of your bottom dresser drawer when it was time to move out of Mom and Dad's place. Dispassionately reading what was written while not feeling the emotions of those times is somewhat surreal. I think that may be one of the greatest gifts of the internet: the ability to retrieve historic records as simply as you retrieve current information. (I would've done this little trick with NinetyandNine.com, but is was SO WELL DESIGNED from the outset, that it has needed only imperceptible changes.) It sure makes you want to be careful what you say, though. I guess that's what makes the Harriet Miers nomination such a conundrum: She's "never said anything."

Time to go to the Pasts Stacija (the post office). We've been expecting a box from the homefolks for 2 weeks now. Our Vonage router died, and we haven't had our U.S. phone active for nearly 3 weeks. Naturally, you can't find such a fantastically futuristic device over here...

Bob


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Final Thoughts on GC - bmyers

I intended to blog my final entry last night, but ladies prayer, kids, household chores and sleep interfered, so I'll wrap it up tonight.

Unlike Stephen, I thought Richmond was an excellent place for conference. There's lots of history and sightseeing to do in the general area (Williamsburg/Washington, DC), and the downtown area had lots of hotels and restaurants. (I know - they were expensive.) As we left Richmond Sunday, Jerry told me that at one time, Richmond had one of the highest crime rates in the US. Despite that, I felt very safe during our entire stay.

There has been some speculation about the small conference crowd. One of the reasons was Hurricane Katrina/Rita. Brother Mangun and many other pastors were noticeably missing because of the relief efforts.

I don't think it has been mentioned that former Virginia governor, Douglas Wilder, attended the service on Thursday night. He is now the mayor of Richmond, and has attended the UPC church there and apparently enjoyed it. I sat fairly close to the platform and watched him a bit. He seemed to very much enjoy our music and the choir. He slipped out of the service about halfway through Bro Haney's message. I did miss the President's videotaped message that we used to get in years gone by. That's probably a thing of the past, since Brother Urshan is gone.

One thing I forgot to mention last week was the Ladies Day Service. Missionary Barb Willoughby preached a magnificent sermon on "The Necessity of Pain". She told the story of a toddler that could feel no pain. Her parents didn't know she had anything wrong with her until she bit her fingertip off while playing one day and was painting with her own blood. After that, they had to monitor every move because she didn't feel pain if she was burned, stubbed her toe, etc. It was a very moving message. Sis. Willoughby herself was healed of breast cancer a few years ago and she relayed part of her story. I did not get to hear Bro. Stoneking, but I hear it was equally as good.

By the way, you'll never believe whose face graces the 2006 Bread Charts. That's right - our own editor-in-chief, Kent Curry. His face was plastered everywhere!!! I guess that's one of the perks of working at WEC. (Along with working 24/7 at GC.)

Let me apologize for the typos in my blogs. I did not have a laptop, so I blogged from the Cyber Cafe outside the Exhibit Hall. The keyboards weren't the best - keys would stick and then it would stall and none of the keys would work at all. I'll do better next time!

Thank you, Kent, for allowing me to blog. It has been a lot of fun, and I hope I helped paint a picture of my conference experience. Thanks for the nice comments from my friends and old acquaintances. Hope to see you all next year!

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She said: Ordered steps

You know that oft quoted verse, the one about the steps of a righteous man being orderd of the Lord? When we first got here, we toured just two apartments before deciding that the very first one we looked at was THE ONE. My brother, John Turner (AIMer to Lithuania) had come to Riga to help us get settled. WE all agreed that this decent sized apartment at the top of of four flights of stairs just felt right for us. After all, it had been renovated (by Latvian standards), had three bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, was partially furnished, and had great big windows that let in a ton of light. We moved in with confidence, feeling that our steps were ordered of the Lord.

Bob and I received some great training by our resident missionaries, Bro. Mark and Robin Shutes, and we knew that part of our job here was to begin by doing spiritual warfare in our neighborhood. We began walking the streets in the area, trying to discern what particular strongholds we needed to pray about. As this is former soviet territory, there is a lot of fear here. We knew that before we started. But come to find out, God had "ordered" our steps right into a doozy of a neighborhood. Across the street from us is a walled, gated compound with lots of big leafy trees. From our fourth floor we could see what looked to us like large homes though the sign out front said something about a hospital the best we could tell. We just learned that it is a drug rehab center! On the other side of that block is another walled compound, except on top of that wall is curling barbed wire. That's right, a prison. A few blocks from us in the opposite direction is a huge, old, creepy graveyard. It seems we are smack dab in the middle of Addiction, Bondage, and Death.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.



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Ahead of the News

Staying current on the events that interest me is sorta unique here. I'm a politics and newshound, and I enjoy some nice AM talkradio with my morning coffee. Over here, of course, I can't get any talkradio. Not in english, anyway. So I'm stuck reviewing the internet. I follow all the usual suspects, ABC, Foxnews, Google News, Drudge, Rush, and whatever else I come across. Watching Katrina and its impacts on the Gulf Coast as well as the impacts on the rest of the nation in the form of energy costs was kind of surreal. It was all real, and I cared a lot, yet I'm mostly insulated from the actual effects. (Stateside readers may be pleased to know that we felt an impact on fuel prices here in Latvia. You read that correctly: the diesel and gasoline crunch in the USA Midwest, and the resulting loosening of U.S. EPA fuel import restrictions caused the fuel market to tighten up here in the Baltics. Diesel went from ~$3.99/gallon to ~4.26/gallon overnight.) Whatever I read, though, I get it 7 hrs ahead of EDT. So my morning fare here is what's dished out overnight in the US. I can sample Google news over a span of hours in the mornings with no appreciable change. It makes every day a slow news day, at least in the mornings. **Sigh.** The sacrifices I have to make for the spread of the Gospel.....

Bob




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GC: Final Thoughts - kdc

Note: Stephen added his final General Conference post beneath Ellie & Bob's first entries as a courtesy to them. However, I thought I'd let this drop in the appropriate time slot just in case anyone else is dropping by and never scrolls down.

Some final bullet points:

* Robert Fuller was named the UPCI's Editor in Chief, replacing the retiring J.L. Hall. Some have compared this position to the UPCI's Chief Theologian. Fuller is currently Bro. Haney's Administrative Assistant, so it will be interesting to see who - if anyone - fills that position.

* 90&9's Group Blog daily numbers are slightly above our NAYC Blog daily numbers. This is a welcome surprise, as North American Youth Congress is our target audience and GC is not. It doesn't surprise me that there's strong interest in both events. The real test to numbers will be Monday & Tuesday as, once everyone came home from NAYC, our numbers skyrocketed. I doubt that will occur for GC.

* My favorite GC quote was my wife's words, via phone (as she was not in attendance): "You have my digital camera, my cell phone and I'm using the old laptop. I feel like I'm in the 1980s!" She reentered the 21st Century at 8:10 this morning & I am only too happy to be home!

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She said:

Tonight we had a small Bible study with some good Baptist folks. The leader reminded us that God can use the adversities that we go through to prepare us or mold us. So true it's almost trite, yet like many simple truths, something I needed to be reminded of. Which brings me to the story about how we met these Baptist folks.

We got to Riga on July 20, 2005. My comfort loving self really yearned to head for home around the 22nd. I felt so guilty for feeling this way. What would everyone say if they knew I harbored such un-missionary like emotions! I gutted it out for a few weeks while we went through "culture shock", found an apartment, and tried to find something that was like American food to feed my kids. One particular morning I finally broke down crying and confessed my struggles to my longsuffering husband. He commiserated with me for awhile, but then suggested we take a walk to try and shake the blues. Since I already felt a little better, having had a good cry and a long talk (amen, sisters?), I reluctantly agreed.

We headed out into the quaint streets (paved with brick and edged with broad sidewalks) , holding hands and praying quietly. Suddenly we heard loud English words coming out of a young man walking purposefully past. He was talking on his cell phone to someone and was exhorting them to be "responsible". He ended his call soon, and Bob couldn't resist the chance to talk to someone who could speak English. Though he was several yards ahead of us, Bob hollered, "Responsibility is important, yes?" He stopped abruptly, whirled around, and came right up to us smiling and shaking Bob's hand. Come to find out, he was the youngest son of the head Baptist Bishop in Riga. Through this "random" meeting on the street we have met so many key people of influence in this city. We are so excited to see what the Lord will do in this situation....we'll keep you posted.

Anyway, bad day....adversity..all that, but still, God reigned that day. Or like my twelve year old daughter likes to say, "God rocks!"

Ellie (wife of the aforementioned Bob Neumann)





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Where in the World is Riga, Latvia?

I'm glad you asked! That's exactly what we asked ourselves when we were invited to come here and help plant a new church. Riga is the capital city of the Republic of Latvia. To us old folks (older than 35 younger than 37) Latvia is a former Soviet state. We're back in the USSR! (anybody remember the Beatles?) Riga has about a million people, and zero Apostolic churches. It does have high rates of alcoholism and gambling addictions, a flourishing "sex tourism" industry, and (surprise, surprise) one of the highest per capita suicide rates in the world. So here Ellie and I are, along with our 3 kids, ready to start a work from scratch. Not quite from scratch, actually. More on that later.

BTW, my name is Bob Neumann, and my wife Ellie and I are Associates in Missions to Riga, Latvia.

Meanwhile, today we go turn in our paperwork for our residence permit applications. The paperwork + about $1800 + about 30 days waiting ought to obtain permission to live here for a year. Again, more on that later.

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"So long. Farewell. Auf wiedersehen. Goodnight." -rdf

Well, October has arrived, and my turn at a Month In the Life has come to an end. It's been a slice. Thanks to all who joined me in this venture, I hope you felt the time you spent reading was worthwhile. And special thanks to those who cajoled me into trying this blogging thing in the first place (Kent, when I grow up I want to be just like you!).

Auf wiedersehen!

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Final Post - SJC

Although I'm actually typing this on Monday night, I have set the time & date to yesterday so as not to interrupt the new bloggers.

I did want to mention that at the business session on Friday there was a resolution that basically categorized Preterism, or any form of it, as a false teaching as far as the UPCI is concerned. There was a position paper attached with the resolution. This resolution came from the General Board after the Commission on Faith & Unity studied the doctrine of Preterism and interviewed some people who believed in it. This was passed by an overwhelming voice vote with little debate, and no one speaking in support of Preterism.

This is intended as a point of information for those of you reading about GC. If you want to weigh in with your thoughts, please use the Letters section of 90 & 9 to do so, rather than the Comments section on this blog.

Someone mentioned to me that it is a "known fact" that when the NAYC is held the same year as GC, the attendance at GC goes down. There did seem to be a lighter attendance this year.

The GC is a mixture of business, trade-show, social, and the spiritual. One can find all these areas represented and I think it will remain a viable conference for some years to come. One thing that might boost attendance is to keep it at locations that have proven popular in years past, such as Louisville, KY, or Salt Lake City, UT. Not having the GC history that some people have, I'm not sure of other popular locations.

Suggestion (somewhat tongue-in-cheek): Someplace south in February or March. This will be a big draw for us northern folks!

I want to thank Kent for the opportunity to be a part of this special GC blog and I already told him I'd be willing to do this next year in Columbus, OH. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun also!


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Back Home - bmyers

While I hate that I missed the crusade tonight in Richmond, it will be nice to be back in my own bed. (Although I must say, the Omni's bed was very comfortable.) We arrived in Winston-Salem at about 7:30 pm, ordered a pizza, unpacked the car and started doing laundry. The kids slept the entire trip, so we had a very nice quiet ride back.

We all overslept Saturday morning, so we didn't make it to the service that Brother Haney was hosting (can't remember the name of it now). Instead, we met friends for breakfast at the Omni (they had a great breakfast buffet), and then spent the rest of the afternoon visiting friends in the Exhibit Hall.

I want to add to previous comments that the Pentecostal Music Association stage was a terrific idea. It was great to hear the different singers/groups perform/minister while you shopped in nearby booths. There were huge signs outside the Exhibit Hall with a list of singers and their slotted times. Everyone I heard was terrific, but then they wouldn't be singing on the PMA stage if they weren't terrific, would they?

The Home Missions Evangelist Booth area was jam packed with shoppers - mostly ladies. For those of you who have never visited the Home Missions booth, let me explain. Evangelists are allowed to have a table or display area to get some exposure and get their name out, as well as sell tapes/CDs or other products they may be promoting. For years now, the evangelists wives have been selling hair bows, purses, neckties, clothing, etc. It has been interesting to watch the progression over the years. This year, as I commented earlier, there were tons of huge flowers with feathers, buttons and glitter to pin on your dress. There were huge feathers to pin to your dress. There were huge flowers with big feathers for your hair, and there were just big feathers for your hair. And they had lots of cute purses with huge flowers and feathers for sell. And, yes, there were purses with only huge feathers glued on them for sell. If you weren't wearing feathers at conference, you just weren't cool. (There were even cute little houseshoes with feathers!) One of my friends pulled an adorable purse out of a bag and yes, it had black feathers glued all along the top. She said, "The sad thing is that this is just a place mat with feathers!" But it was still cute. One evangelist was selling these rubber things that go on your head -- looked like a porcupine. It fit completely over your scalp and had these pointy things sticking up all over the scalp. Alexandra wanted one, but I talked her out of it. I must say that these wives are very talented. Most of the items for sale would very easily sell very well in an upscale ladies clothing store.

A comment was made about the glow sticks in the Foreign Missions service. For every $500 given to FMD to help with the deficit, a glow stick was given, so if you gave $5000, you were given 10 glow sticks. By the time the money was raised, glow sticks covered the coliseum. Looked great with the lights out.

And that brings me another new change (at least for me). The lighting effects were great this year. Anytime the choir sang, the lights on them were changing continually - red/blue/pink, etc. And at different points during the services, (was it during the worship service?) huge spotlights were scanning the crowd. My description sounds a bit circus-like, but it was actually pretty neat.

The Central American Region in the Foreign Missions booth was so colorful and attractive this year. They built a fruit stand and you literally could take a piece of real fruit from the stand and just throw money into the big straw hat that they used as part of the decoration. By Saturday, most of the fruit was gone.

The African Region booth had lots of carved elephants, giraffes and other beautiful pieces, as well as African cloths and bags. But as was mentioned, Brother Riddick sold the most popular item - the marshmallow gun thing. Those things were everywhere and kids of all ages were having a great time with them. Brother Riddick is so clever, and a brilliant missionary too.

The European booth is one of my favorite, but I can't afford their stuff. They always sell the most beautiful pieces of crystal and china, direct from the factories in Europe. I could have done some serious shopping if I would have had the money.

I haven't read a blog about the shuttle transportation system, so I need to air my complaint. As in years past, headquarters arranged for a shuttle bus to pick up folks from about 6 hotels downtown Richmond and drive them to the Coliseum. The shuttle ran continuously, but they didn't seem to have a particular time schedule. We didn't experience any problems until Thursday night. My plan was to jump on the shuttle, run in to the convention center and blog a few lines before service. We waited over 30 minutes for the shuttle to come, and when they did arrive, three buses came at once. Of course, by the time they came, there were enough folks waiting outside our hotel to fill three buses. We got to the Coliseum at 7 pm, so there was no time to blog.

Last night, I didn't want to encounter the same problem, so we were at the shuttle pickup at 6 pm. The bus didn't arrive until 6:42 pm, and when it did arrive, another bus pulled in right behind it. Frustrating.

Hey, I've gone on too long. Kent will have my hide for "hogging the blog". More tomorrow!

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The Future of GC is..? - kdc

* Though I've heard one person estimate total attendance at 6,000, that seems much too low to me. On the other hand, 8,000-9,000 (max) seems realistic. One division reported sales at half of last year, and while the exhibit hall was busier than the last 3 years, it still never swarmed (at least while I was there).

* On Thursday, someone mentioned to me that they had many friends at recent conferences leave on Saturday. That seemed to occur this year, w/people bailing for vacations to DC, Williamsburg, etc.

* I can't help but speculate that, in the next five years, GC will remove another day from the schedule (Sunday?) and it becomes much less of an event and much more of a preacher's-only meeting. And there's nothing wrong with that. Besides the usual camps, preaching conferences are multiplying w/most of the same speaker's you hear at GC. Bible Quizzing is now at NAYC. I know I'm youth-centric & not a preacher, but the difference in buzz between GC & NAYC wasn't even close.

*I need to stress that I have no inside information, & that conferences aren't created for buzz, but if you can't make (foolish?) predictions in print now and again, where's the fun in life?

FINAL TIDBIT?
* I fly out at 6:45 a.m. so don't expect much from me on Monday, however...

* A reliable source told me that downtown restaurant owner came into the PPH music area & bought $70 worth of Apostolic music so that he could play it in the background while Aps ate there after service! Very smart.



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I'm Home - SJC

I'm home!!! We left at 7:15 a.m. after I had about 4 hours sleep. I arrived home at around 7:30 p.m. to a warm welcome from all. I'll post some wrap-up thoughts tomorrow.


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It's Time to Go Home - bmyers

I hate this part of conference. We left the Sunday School service and made our last rounds through the booths, said goodbye to our friends and took a few pictures. Most of the Bible School booths are packed up, and a few others, but PPH is doing a swift business and the tables are clearing.

We stopped to talk to a friend on the way out the door and Alexandra decided to visit another booth with a friend - without telling us she was leaving. We spent a couple of panicked minutes looking for her. Right now I'm at the Cyber Cafe outside the exhibit area and the kids are having a good time because it's a large open space and there's no one around, except for a few teens checking their e-mail.

We're on our way to the hotel to pack and drive home. Since it's a short drive, I'll give you an update when I get home.

By for now!

P.S. Thanks for posting those pictures, Kent!

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Awww! (Cute Kid Alert!)- kdc

Brenda was the only blogger brave enough to bring her children, so kudos to her and her (and Jerry's) beautiful children - Alexandra and Grant.















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Home Sweet Home - SJC

No, it really isn't snowing in Vermont, yet....., but it's coming! Y'all come visit us when it's minus 20 degrees...





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PMA: Saturday Afternoon - Priscilla McGruder

Okay, I'm not a huge Southern Gospel fan, but you'd have to be spiritually dead to not see Sis. Priscilla McGruder's powerful singing ministry. She turned the PMA Soundstage into an incredible ministry moment, going into the audience and praying/singing with those needing healing, be it spiritual, emotional, or physical. That end of the exhibit hall literally stopped as she displayed God on Earth. And it was all done to a soundtrack.








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It's Late - SJC

I like Kent's bullet style entries so I'll try some myself.

* Friday night preaching by Scott Graham was very good. The altar call by Bruce Howell was outstanding.

* The Friday & Saturday night crowds didn't look as big as years past, and the Saturday crowd might have been less than Friday. I'm not real good at estimating arena crowds.

* I ate popcorn for the first time at GC in the halls of the arena. It wasn't all that good. Too salty.

* There were some pretty strange outfits on both sides of the gender, but not as many as I have seen in past years. I'm not sure where some of these outfits are bought. For me, what doesn't come from a second-hand store usually comes from J.C. Penny.

* I had a picture of one of these outfits, but I didn't want to ruin this person's life if he was recognized from the blog. It was my attempt at compassion, which I didn't score high on in a gift assessment test.

* Some of the young ladies looked almost anorexic. I hope this scourge of the college campuses hasn't made its way into A/P. BTW, I would never be accused of this condition, even after a week of fasting.

* David Bernard's message was the best I heard at GC. The title: Revival in the Time of Promise. It's worth the investment.

* Once again I found my footsteps "ordered of the Lord" at GC, but sorry I can't give you the particulars (Don't you hate it when people do that?). We serve an amazing God!

* I'm currently eating a mushroom pizza with my roommate at 12:20 a.m. at night. It's a bad habit he got me into in the last couple of years. "Your old men shall dream dreams...."

* I spent slightly over $100.00 at the PPH. That's a pretty cheap year for me.

* I would not want to come back to a GC in Richmond. Sorry Virginia District, but this area is not as nice as some I've been in. The problem with some unruly people (non A/P's) in the lobby of the Richmond Marriott didn't add to the atmosphere.

* My roommate just informed me that the lobby was probably about half full. But he said it was "older people" my age. Where have all the young people gone?

* I spent a good share of time in the display area and reconnected with a bunch of people, which is my favorite part of GC.

* Never got to my statistics homework, or the extra books I brought along. I should know better by now..... Statistically, I'd say there's a 100% chance I'll be doing my statistics homework on Monday.

* Gotta run as I'm getting up at 6 a.m. for the long ride home. Leave Richmond, VA, at 7 a.m. - Arrive Milton, Vermont hopefully before 9 p.m. I miss my wife and seven children!

* The other bloggers will have to pick up my slack for Sunday reports. I'll have some concluding thoughts sometime on Monday.

* P.S. I really do have more hair than the group blogger shot is showing.....

* P.P.S. Kent is actually older than I am! Brenda didn't say, and I didn't ask.....



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Azusa Street Riders Booth: Saturday AM - kdc

When we were setting up the PPH booth Wednesday, a Harley suddenly roared into the exhibit hall and everyone stopped and turned as it motored in...

One of the unique ministry booths at GC, the Azusa Street Riders has 12 chapters throughout the country.

Expect an interview soon.





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Marshmallow Gun - kdc

The Riddicks, missionaries to The Cameroon, created the hottest selling item at General Conference, a marshmallow blow gun. Our model is Neil Guinn, son of Scott Guinn, missionary to Mexico.

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Kid's Foreign Missions Prayer Walk: Sat Afternoon

Sis. Angie Clark taught the children how to pray for missionaries, then had the King's Clown lead the children over to the Foreign Missions area to pray.



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More PMA: Sat afternoon - kdc

The Gordon Sisters / Family
(out of Denver)











The Baker Family
(out of Michigan)










Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

Your Group Bloggers (minus 1)

Here we are in all our splendor: Stephen Cousino, Kent d Curry, Brenda Myers. (MIA: Angela Howe)

Special thanks to all 3 for making this blog possible! (Expect reports through Monday.)

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!