North Carolina - Staying with the Renfro Family

After leaving the conference, we had a 3-4 hour drive back to the Renfro's home.  They also had some other friends who came and stayed as well. We stayed from Sunday night to Thursday afternoon and had sweet fellowship, amazing fun, meaningful conversations, met some wonderful people, and ate delicious food (Brianne and Jenna are amazing cooks!). 

I'll stop talking about our time and get straight to the pictures...

 We arrived late in the evening and stayed up really late (don't ask how late! :) talking and playing games.  Jenna made hot chocolate as well.  It was delicious!

The next morning/afternoon, we went and played basketball at the YMCA.  I had never played before and was hesitant to begin, but once I started (after some prompting :), it was incredibly fun.  I can't wait until next time!

This is when it was moving slow.  It was so fun to watch!

The last game that we played was an all girls' game and I'm afraid that it got quite competitive and a little vicious!   :)  I was in the game, so there aren't any pictures, but it was SO fun. 

On Monday night, the Renfros had a whole bunch of people over for dinner and a whole lot more.  We had a time of worship and, since it was Reformation Day (the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the church door in Whittenberg), we just had to sing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".  It was so neat to worship the Lord alongside of so many brothers and sisters. 

For dessert, there were s'more bars.  It was AMAZING!  They had the giant marshmallows, coconut coated marshmallows, about 8 or so different kinds of candy bars, Hershey bars, nutella, Reese's peanut butter, and different kinds of Graham crackers.  They went all out and it was delicious! 

Later that night, we played Running Pictionary.  It is now one of my absolute favorite games.  It is hilarious fun and you just have to try it (whether you are a good artist or not!).

OK, so here's how you play:

Since we had so many people, we divided into three teams.  Each team has their own table.  There is a person sitting somewhere in the middle with a list of ten words or so (each list is categorized - Thanksgiving, Food, Kitchen Utensils, etc.).  Each team chooses one person to start them off.  That person goes to the list-maker, gets the first word, runs back to his/her team and proceeds according to Pictionary rules.  Once the word is correctly guessed, the person who guessed the word goes back to the list-maker, repeats the word that was just guessed and gets the next word.  The game proceeds in this way until one team completes the list.  That team is the winner of that round.  

The Renfro family's home. 

Daniel 

Jenna 

L-R (back):

Daniel, Gabriel, Josh, Jenna

(front)

Me, Baxter(the dog), Mrs. Renfro 

More worship. 

Thank you, Renfro family for your amazing meals!   

Playing Catch Phrase. 

Mrs. Renfro and Jenna took Mama and I to downtown Wake Forest and out for lunch.   

Lunch was delicious - thank you so much! 

Jenna and me. 

We went into some little downtown shops and I thought that this Norman Rockwell picture was way too cute because it looks as though it could be Elijah and me! 

Thank you, Daniel for playing the piano.  It was wonderful. 

Brianne and Jenna, you are wonderful cooks.  Thank you for all of your incredible dinners and all of the little extras that made life a whole lot yummier!  :) 

The sunrise on Thursday morning.  I missed it at its best, but it was still pretty when I got out. 

Daniel with one of his German Shepherds.   

Goodbye photos :(

Papa wrote Mama this text message before we took off.  I thought that it was really sweet.  :)

Farmland.  Isn't it gorgeous?

North Carolina - The Marriage Conference

As a huge and very special gift for my 17th birthday, Mama took me to North Carolina to visit some very dear friends of ours and to attend a NCFIC conference on Gospel Centered Marriages.  The conference was wonderful and, because of the breakout sessions, I really wished that I could have been in more than one place at a time!  Some of the more well-known speakers were  Doug Phillips, Scott Brown, and Paul Washer.

Paul Washer preached a sermon titled "The Center of all Things - The Gospel" and I truly think that it was the best gospel sermon that I have ever heard and definitely my favorite session at the conference.  I mean, if you are going to have a conference on Gospel centered marriage, the Gospel does need to be at the center, right!?!  If you have never listened to Paul Washer, I would highly recommend that you do so as soon as possible :).  He is definitely one of my favorite speakers and one of the many things that I really love about him is the way that he presents the gospel.  It is as if it always has some new charm for him and for me as one of his hearers, it is as if I am hearing the gospel for the first time - he does this to me over and over again!  In the busyness of life, it is so easy to treat Christ's work as unimportant, or worse, forget about it completely.  His work was more than just simple physical pain, as Mr.Washer said so accurately in his sermon. Even more than that, it was the anguish of having His holy Father forsake Him completely.  I think that we tend to dwell on the physical aspect of His suffering because, we can, on a V-E-R-Y small scale, relate to it.  But we have absolutely no idea what it would be like to have almighty God, He who is perfectly holy and just, crush us without mercy.  In our fallen state, we have no idea of what holy is, so it is impossible to imagine what Christ went through.  Mr. Washer also said something in his sermon that I thought was very interesting and so true, though I had never really thought about it before.  He said that preaching is such a pitiful thing, because the man who is preaching is trying to make others understand something that he has so little understanding of himself. 

So, without further adieu, I will get on to telling you about our time at the conference mostly through the pictures that I took.

Saying "goodbye" at the airport. 

Soon after takeoff.  I couldn't believe how small the city looked! 

Mama granted me the window seat so I was able to get lots of pictures.  Be thankful that I'm not posting all of them!  This was my first time ever flying in a plane, so I took every opportunity I could to get pictures out the window. 

It was amazing to see the ground so far

D

O

W
N

B
E
L
O
W

through the clouds. 

It was so cold up there that frost accumulated on the window! 

This is what I saw after we had dropped below the clouds.

Waiting at the airport. 

This is what it looked like out our back window on the first morning.  Later that day, we moved to a different room. 

The fall colors were simply beautiful and vibrant.

The bright leaves were a lovely contrast against the blue sky. 

One of our "next door neighbors", Mikaela.  We hiked up the mountain with their family. 

On our hike, I found this dried up leaf and thought that it was really big, until... 

...I saw this! 

Fall in the mountains of North Carolina is just gorgeous and God's handiwork is displayed everywhere! 

A glimpse of the mountains on the way up. 

And this was the first thing that I saw when I got to the top.  What a wonderful reward and an encouragement!

And here's what I saw next.  Isn't it amazing? 

My wonderful and very sweet friend, Jenna. 

You'll be seeing more of her later. :)

The view from our second room.  It was so neat to get up every morning, look out the window and see that cross on the top of the hill, reminding me of what Christ did for me.  But the cross is also white, reminding me of His resurrection! 

One of the conference days was wet and foggy.  During the course of the day, the fog dropped lower and lower until we could no longer see the mountains. 

Mama and I drove around during our dinner break and I got some pictures. 

On Saturday evening, we went with the Renfro family to visit some of their friends (who ended up to be staying in the next house over from the one that we were staying in!) and later we went out and sang hymns around the campfire.  It was a blessed night of fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. 

We met many sweet brothers and sisters while we were at the conference and I hope that we can stay in contact with them.