If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Clickherefor more information, or to find an upcoming event near you! Now is the time to book an event for 2024!
What a pleasure it was to fellowship with the wonderful women of Lindale, Texas, and the surrounding area at First Baptist Church’sGrowing in the Word women’s conference in November. FBC’s pastor Tom Buck and his wife, Jennifer are dear friends, so it was great to get to see them again.
When an event is only a few hours away from home, my husband, Scott, usually drives me. We took a nice, leisurely drive into Lindale.
It’s sugar cane season in south Louisiana. We used to serve a church that sat pretty much in the middle of a bunch of cane fields. I miss driving through them.
Stopping at Billy’s (think of it as a small, Cajun Buc-ee’s) when we’re in the area is always a treat. A girl’s got to have her crawfish pie!
We arrived Friday afternoon to get settled into the hotel, and were greeted by these lovely hostess gifts. This gorgeous cutting/charcuterie board is from Gum Creek Cutting Boards. They have been on my Holy Holidays list of Christian-owned businesses for a couple of years now, and they do beautiful work. (I almost want to hang it on the wall as art instead of using it!) The little thingies that look like marshmallows are actually aromatherapy shower steamers – kind of like bath bombs, but for the shower.
Tom and Jen took us out for an amazing dinner of Texas barbecue, and then this happened.
I had the peanut butter fudge. Which one looks good to you?
Saturday morning, it was conference time. (No audio/video available.) FBC has an amazing and versatile multi-purpose space across the street from the church, and it was perfectly suited for the conference.
My husband dropped me off so he could go do manly stuff elsewhere, and the ladies had a brief time of fellowship and breakfast before things got kicked off.
Saddle up, listeners. :0)
Sonya did a marvelous job as our emcee, and Lydia was a great worship leader!
Our first teaching session was Holy Mothers (and others) of God’s Word. We took a look at several women of Scripture and how they exemplified holiness to us. God gave us some superb examples in women like Anna, Naomi, Mary and Martha, and others, and we would do well to follow in their footsteps.
After a short break, it was time for Practical Holiness. It’s one thing to talk about holiness. It’s another thing to do holiness at 9:13 a.m. on a Tuesday when you’re at work or taking care of your family. How do we live lives of holiness every day?
Lunch time! The conference team put out a lovely spread of chicken salad croissants a charcuterie platter and other goodies.
When we reassembled, we switched gears from holiness to hospitality.
Hospitality: Welcoming Others as Christ Welcomes Us was first on the agenda. Hospitality doesn’t mean having twelve people over for a fancy dinner on fine china. It’s a posture of heart that welcomes others in because Christ first welcomed us.
Our final session was Practicing Hospitality. We had studied what the Bible teaches about hospitality in our first session, but how should we go about putting it into practice?
During the course of the conference, there were several drawings for door prizes. I thought the planning team organized it in a really fun way. At registration, each lady received five slips of paper with her name on them and she could place them in the baskets for the various prizes as she liked – all of them in one basket, one each in five different baskets or some other split of her choice.
Our hearts were full and it was all over but the picture taking.
It was so fantastic to see my sisters Sonya and Jen again. I love the family of God.❤️
Thanks so much to Tracy and Ky for taking us out for a farewell dinner at this fun place. They had Monte Cristo sandwiches, one of my faves!
A heartwarming ending to an outstanding weekend – we stayed over and worshiped with the saints at FBC Lindale on Sunday. Tom is an excellent expositor.
It was such a wonderful weekend with the ladies of First Baptist, Lindale. Thanks so much to Tom and Jen and all the other brothers and sisters of FBC for making us feel right at home. Thanks also to all the men and women who worked so hard to host a fantastic conference, and extended such warm hospitality to us. If you’re ever in the area and need a good church to visit, make plans to spend the Lord’s Day with these wonderful brothers and sisters.
If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Click here for more information, or to find an upcoming event near you!
Photo Credits
Many thanks to all of the conference attendees who took or shared many of the photos above. You may assume that if I’m in the picture or if it’s a good quality photo that I didn’t take it. The remaining photos were shot by me.
If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Clickherefor more information, or to find an upcoming event near you! Now is the time to book an event for 2024!
It brought me such joy, recently, to share with another great group of ladies at the Jesus Camp, Nantucket Women’s Retreat on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Conferences are super for reaching out to women in your community and surrounding areas, but retreats provide an intimate atmosphere that’s conducive to both formal instruction and informal, one on one discipleship. And we had plenty of time and space for both! Many thanks to Darcy Creech Marelli for opening up her lovely homes and hosting this biannual time of refreshing for women from all over the country this past October.
Last year when I spoke at JCNWR, it was just a couple of months prior to my 30th wedding anniversary, so my husband and I decided to drive to the retreat and treat ourselves to a “working second honeymoon,” visiting some fun “touristy” places on the way back home. We had such a great time, we decided to do it again this year.
How it started…
How it ended.
It’s two full days of driving from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Hyannis, Massachusetts, and things were off to a great start. Our hotel in Virginia the first night was free due to some rewards points I’d forgotten I had.
The second night, when we arrived at our inn in Hyannis, we checked in and discovered that, for whatever reason, they had upgraded us for free to a room with a bay view.
As we unloaded our luggage in the parking lot and prepared to head to our room, I heard a man’s voice calling out a greeting to me in French. (Brothers, can I just say, unless you want to completely terrify a woman you don’t know, never call out to her in a dark parking lot – in French or otherwise.) It turns out he was from Baton Rouge, too, had seen our Louisiana license plate, and was glad to see some home folks. (We ran into an oddly inordinate number of people from Louisiana, or with close ties to Louisiana, in Massachusetts this year.)
The lakeside view from our motel room.
I’ll never tire of the sights that welcome me to Nantucket as I arrive on the ferry…
Wednesday night, the ladies began to arrive. We shared a delicious dinner, and then had the opportunity to hear everyone’s “two minute testimony”. Our backgrounds varied from those of us who were born and raised in church and came to know Christ at an early age to those who had survived abuse, or walked on the wild side, or were involved in heretical church backgrounds before coming to Christ later in life. There is no such thing as a “boring” testimony. Every new birth in Jesus is a miracle of His mercy and grace.
This year, I taught a four lesson series on the topic of suffering. (No audio or video available.) Suffering is something we will all eventually experience, and God’s Word has so much to teach us about how to endure and respond to it in a biblical way.
Thursday’s teaching started with Christ, the Suffering Servant, discussing Christ’s suffering as the lens through which we view our own suffering.
We rounded out our instructional time with The Theology of Suffering, examining some common “Christian” misconceptions about suffering, and what the Bible actually teaches. Each session was followed by a time of Q&A and discussion groups.
Friday, session 1 was Rejoicing in God’s Promises During Suffering. Though suffering can be difficult and painful, God has made so many good promises to us and given us ample reason to rejoice, even in the most challenging circumstances.
Our second session was The Christian’s Response to Suffering. We always want to be sure we’re responding to suffering in a godly way, whether it’s our own suffering or we’re ministering to someone else.
Both teaching sessions were again followed by Q&A and discussion groups. All of the ladies were very gracious and receptive, and we had many edifying moments of discipleship.
Of course, there’s always time for food, fellowship, and fun! The ladies enjoyed working out, chatting around the dinner table, relaxing in the pool and hot tub, and trips into town and to the beach.
No, this is not yoga.
Nope, still not yoga.
Retreat swag! Darcy kindly provided these resources and gifts for retreat attendees, and gave me a special treat of honey from High Point’s hive!
All too soon, it was time to say goodbye. It was a wonderful time of fellowship in the Lord, and I’m looking forward to going back next year! Many thanks to Darcy and her assistant, Otilia, who worked so hard to host a great retreat, took care of all my needs, and made me feel so welcome.
If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Click here for more information.
I was starving when I got off the ferry and onto the mainland, so we stopped at a trendy local restaurant for a late lunch before hitting the road for a few fun stops on the way home.
Fish tacos, New England style. Every Louisiana woman who travels knows to carry Tony’s in her purse. Sometimes, when you’re away from home, ya just gotta kick it up a notch! :0)
First on our itinerary was Dayton, Ohio, so we headed west.
I keep hoping to visit New York City one of these days. Last year, this is as close as we got.
This year we got a little closer. We actually drove through the city on the interstate. Here are the sights we saw (pretty thrilling, huh?):
We got in early enough to spend a couple of hours at the museum before it closed. Next on the agenda was Skyline Chili for supper. I was first introduced to the idea of eating chili on top of spaghetti noodles a few years ago on Twitter. To which I promptly said, “Gross. How could anybody ruin chili that way?”. But my Ohio followers swear by it, and there was a Skyline Chili practically across the street from our hotel, so I thought, why not give it a try? Besides, I love sampling the local fare when I travel. I ordered it “4 Way” (noodles, chili, beans, and cheese).
The verdict? I love you, Ohio, but my initial reaction to chili spaghetti was spot on for me. It’s just not my cup of tea. Sorry.
We spent the next day seeing the rest of the NMUSAF. To me, a plane is a plane (Don’t tell my husband I said that! :0), and there must have been hundreds of them, but even for someone like me, there were plenty of things to hold my interest, and I highly recommend that you visit if you get the opportunity. I’ve been to a lot of great museums, including the Smithsonian, and the NMUSAF is definitely one of the best. And not only that, admission and parking are both free, it’s open 7 days a week, and the grounds are lovely as well. If you love planes, plan to spend a few days. It’s huge.
One of the planes I enjoyed seeing was the C-47. This is the plane my grandfather flew during WWII, back when the Air Force was still the Army Air Corps.
There was a very sad exhibit on the Holocaust.
Disney lent its art and artists to a number of planes and units.
Major General Claire Lee Chenault was a long time Louisiana resident and former LSU student who formed and led the very successful American Volunteer Group – the Flying Tigers – during WWII.
Other exhibits I enjoyed included: walking through the “Air Force Ones” of Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy (the one that flew his body back to Washington after the assassination), a giant, floor to ceiling quilt commemorating Air Force bases that have closed, the evolution of the Air Force song, and Ham’s – the first chimp in space – uniform and simulator. Ham was trained at Holloman AFB, not far from where I grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Before planes were invented, the military gave ballooning a try…
A memo about ballooning written by Abraham Lincoln (original).
Ham’s simulator
Because M*A*S*H, that’s why.
The beautiful grounds…
We finished up the Air Force museum early enough to drive on to our next destination, just an hour away – northern Kentucky.
After a good night’s sleep, we headed for the Creation Museum! What a joy to be in a museum having anything to do with science and hear a biblical perspective on it instead of having to consciously ignore all the evolution stuff (or correct it to your children). And all of the exhibits were so gospel-centered! We watched two brief 3D movies- one on the six days of Creation, the other, a Genesis through Revelation presentation of the gospel. There was also a small exhibit from the Museum of the Bible, which we hope to visit next year. It was too cold to spend much time outside, and the animals in the zoo seemed to agree, so we didn’t see many of them. When we got done with the museum, we took a quick look-see at downtown Cincinnati (it reminded us a lot of downtown New Orleans) and saw Paycor Stadium, where the Cincinnati Bengals play.
Noah…
Original letter written by Hudson Taylor.
Found a great book in the gift shop!
I spy somebody I know on p. 36!
The final stop on our trip was the Ark Encounter, which we thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend, along with the Creation Museum. My favorite part was the exhibit with all the Noah storybooks that explained how harmful the “kiddiefication” of the Noahic narrative is. We also got to meet Ronda, a follower who has been such a faithful supporter of my ministry and A Word Fitly Spoken. Ronda works at the Ark, and was so kind and gracious to meet us and give us a behind the scenes tour of the hydroponic gardens and greenhouses in her department, where decorative plants as well as plants that feed the animals in the petting zoo are grown and maintained. Thank you, Ronda!
I couldn’t stop laughing at snack bars and…
…a TV room on the ark.
I got to meet Ken Ham! (Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.)
Thanks for everything, Ronda!
This trip was such a blessing. We are most grateful to God for providing it for us!
Photo Credits
Thank you to all the retreat attendees who generously shared many of the photos you see above in the retreat section.
If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Clickherefor more information, or to find an upcoming event near you! Now is the time to book an event for 2024!
What a pleasure it was to fellowship with the wonderful women of Opelousas, Louisiana, at First Baptist Church’sSeek to Serve women’s conference. Believe it or not, after nearly seven years of traveling and speaking at women’s events, this was my very first event in my home state of Louisiana. It was quite surreal to teach a conference while still sleeping in my own bed at night!
A nice, early morning drive put me at FBCO in plenty of time to meet some of the ladies and get settled before the conference started.
Check in time was warm and welcoming, thanks to April, our conference organizer, and her team.
A hostess basket (complete with that beautiful flour sack towel in the background) was an unbelievably kind gesture since I was only there for the day!
The fall-themed decor was just charming…
The conference team offered up a tempting spread, and breakfast was a hit!
Conference time!
No conference audio/video is available for this event, however, I taught the same two sessions on biblical womanhood at this conference earlier in the year, if you’d like to watch.
We all moved into the sanctuary, and Amy and Lance led us in some worship songs.
Our first session was God’s Design for Biblical Womanhood. Womanhood is special and unique. Womanhood – not a cheap knockoff of manhood – is something God values and wants women to display in the world, the church, and the family.
After session 1, we took a quick break, then kicked off the next portion of the conference with some fun door prizes.
Walking in Biblical Womanhood was our second teaching session of the day. Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change the diapers. God’s plan for most of us is to change the diapers, get the groceries, make the meals. We fight back against feminism by standing – right where God has placed us – and living each day faithfully.
All of that teaching and learning can make a girl hungry, and in the heart of Cajun country, that means crawfish and chicken pasta for lunch. (I would have taken a picture of mine, but I had already inhaled it by the time I thought about it. You don’t mess with Cajun women when it comes to food!)
Adorable (and tasty!) pumpkin cookies and cake balls!
We finished out the day with a Q&A session with lots of insightful questions from these sharp and eager ladies. One of the topics we discussed was the need for older women to disciple and train younger women, as we’re commanded to in Titus 2:3-5. It was such a joy to have a few older women step up – on the spot! – and offer their wisdom and time to disciple some of the younger women!
We wrapped things up with more door prizes and worship…
…and a fun time of photos and fellowship!
It was such a wonderful weekend with the ladies of First Baptist, Opelousas. Thanks so much to April and Pastor Joel and his wife, Angie, for making me feel right at home. Thanks also to all the men and women of FBC who worked so hard to host a fantastic conference, and extended such warm hospitality to me. If you’re ever in the area and need a good church to visit, make plans to spend the Lord’s Day with these wonderful brothers and sisters.
If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Click here for more information, or to find an upcoming event near you!
Photo Credits
Many thanks to April and other conference attendees who took or shared many of the photos above. You may assume that if I’m in the picture or if it’s a good quality photo that I didn’t take it. The remaining photos were shot by me.
