Immerse Austin and church retreats

On Feb 3rd, I went to Immerse Austin at Riverbend Church with some long-time friends, and some new friends. We saw Mandisa, Lysa Terkeurst, and Anita Renfro. Great show! I remember several things from it. I'll share a couple from Lysa's talk here now. She has 5 children. Two boys she adopted from Africa, and three daughters who are younger than the boys. The kids are older now, but when the youngest was 4, they all went to Walmart. A woman stopped in the aisle and looked them over and said, "Different fathers." Lysa didn't know what to say. Her 4 year old put her hands on her hips and looking up at the woman said, "Let me 'splain it to you. When my mommy was pregnant with my brothers, she drank chocolate milk." I don't remember if the woman said anything after that because everyone was laughing so hard. Gotta love the way kids look at life. It never occurred to the child that those were not her biological brothers.

The other story that Lysa told really stuck with me. She said that one Christmas they wanted to make it very special and make sure the kids knew it was all about Jesus and not the presents. A couple of weeks before Christmas, she and her husband decided they would have a nice breakfast before gifts. They would set a place at the table for Jesus and put a box in the middle of the table. Everyone would share what their gift to Jesus would be for that year. Then they would write it on a paper and put it in the box. Lysa thought about her gift. She started out with, "I'm not going to yell at my kids this year." That wasn't going well in those two weeks before Christmas, so she decided to change it to, "I'm not going to yell at my kids this year, so much." On Christmas morning, her husband went first to share his gift. I don't recall the exact words, but it went something like this: "I'm going to look for someone each day to share my time, money, or encouragement with, so that at the end of the year, I will know that 365 people have been affected by the love of Christ." Lysa thougth to herself that she couldn't bring HER crappy gift to this party, so she immediately said, "Me too!" Then all of the children said, "Me too!" Every evening at dinner they would share who they had affected that day. It brought the family closer together and affected many people. I think she said they kept doing it after the year because it had become a habit. A very good one! I like the idea, and plan to do it myself! I should keep a journal so I'll know how I'm doing. Will be neat to read later to remember the people affected.

I left Riverbend about 9:15, just before the crowd, so I could beat the traffic and head for the ECW retreat at Wellspring between Wimberley and Blanco. It was drizzling. Not nice traveling weather! About a mile before I turned off on the road to Wellspring, I got into some rain that was really hard! I could barely see the road, so I was creeping along. No one else was on the road out there at that time of night. The last vehicle in front of me had turned off miles before that. Just before I turned off on the road to Wellspring, the rain let up. When I turned on the road, it was bone dry for the several (about 3 or 4) miles, then just after I crossed the low bridge, it started to pour again. I drove really slow along the gravel road. It was still pouring when I pulled up to the conference center about 11:00. All the way there I had been praying that I would get there safely and that there would be no water over the bridge. Those prayers were answered! Then when I got there and it was pouring, I prayed for 10 minutes of no rain so I could get to the house and unload the car. Thankfully, that prayer was answered and we had 30 minutes before the storm got bad again. There was a 3 foot wide river of water running down the gravel road in front of the house I was staying in with two of my friends. They didn't know what time I was going to get there, so they took the room with the two twin beds and gave me the room with the full size bed. They are really sweet friends. I've been really restless the last few months with my hip bothering me, so the extra room to roll over was really nice. The whole retreat was really nice. I got to reconnect with some friends I haven't seen in a while and make some new friends. It was great to be with my ECW "sisters" and get some comfort from them after losing my sister. Wellspring is such a spiritual place too, so that was also comforting. They call it the Holy Hill. I love going there.

On Feb 10th, I got to go to another church retreat at Summer's Mill in Salado. It's a beautiful place too, but not nearly as remote as Wellspring. This was my second retreat there. I am on the BOCC retreat committee this year so I was much busier than last year. The speaker, Rachel Raborn-Norris, a potter from Bryan, (Joy Pottery) was the speaker. Amazing! Her testimony and the way she shared while showing us how to make a pitcher, a pot, and a bowl on the wheel, was very inspiring. It is very interesting the way she puts it all together with the way God shapes us into vessels he can use. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, don't miss it! I could easily repeat that whole thing again! They did video tape part of it, so hopefully I will get to see it. I told Rachel she should make a DVD, but I think she likes the human contact. She is booked to speak a year in advance, 4 to 6 times each month. I don't know how she finds time to make the beautiful pottery she makes. She doesn't sell online, so the pieces are limited. Only sold at her studio and her speaking events. Yes, I bought a couple things. A beautiful Communion set. I will probably use it for crackers and dip tho. Or maybe a candy dish. It has grapes and leaves on the side of the chalice, and a couple of stalks of wheat on the plate. I also bought a mug with the same grape design. I'll probably take it to the office for my hot chocolate.
The committee bought a beautiful bowl as a gift for our leader. She loves it. I took a picture of it, but can't remember at the moment the words around the inside rim. Will have to look that up when I go through the pictures deciding what to print for the scrapbook.

Well, that's enough for now.
Blessings,
Lori