Friday, July 1

Today we had the WOV conference! We had to wake up 30 minutes earlier than normal, at 5:30. We left for Arundis at 7:15, and stopped to pick up Arvan. After dropping him off at Tresford and Fabiola’s, we headed straight for the town hall to set up for the conference. I was put in charge of decorations, which was loads of fun! Except I didn’t have any tape, so I started off using band-aids as tape, to hold up the floral strings to the front of the stage. Don then gave me some medical tape, which was incredibly helpful and I actually got the strands to stay. I wrapped some plastic flowers around the paper strands and set some other plastic flowers on the speakers and music equipment. After everything was set up, Joyce gave everyone jobs for when the women started arriving. Mom, Pearl, Katherine, and I were asked to serve the women hot water for tea or coffee after they were escorted to their seats by a few other team members. We started off with a prize drawing, just to break the ice. After giving away a few purses, we sang a song and Joyce talked for a bit. Fabiola introduced everyone from our team, and then Julie and Sandi shared their testimonies. We served the women juice and fruit after they finished their tea or coffee and cookies. We sang another song, Pastor Stephan came and spoke to the women, gave an alter call, and almost every woman went to the front to accept Jesus as their Savior! Praise the Lord! We then sang and danced to the song, “Undignified,” which the women loved. We all had so much fun dancing like crazy and clapping and singing as loud as we could. After Joyce gave away the last of the purses, we gave each woman the gift bags we had put together. Joyce asked the women not to open their bags until she said so, and when they opened their bags, they literally squealed with excitement! They were all so excited for the scarves – many of them put the scarf on right away. After they looked through their bags, we walked to the restaurant for lunch. The women at the restaurant prepared a delicious meal of chicken, rice, vegetables, and potato salad. After eating all of my chicken and most of my potato salad, I was so full. We got take away boxes and I gave the remainder of my rice and vegetables to the women I was sitting with. One woman even took what I left of my chicken, which was just skin, fat, and bone. They are all so hungry that they will eat almost everything – this point was proven when we gave the women their food staples bag… A few women were so happy that they clapped and nearly danced out of their seats. It’s amazing how excited the women were about this small bag. Joyce said this bag of food would probably last them about a week and a half of feeding their families. After lunch with the women, we cleaned up the town hall from WOV and set up for TOV, which required pretty much the same stuff. When we finished setting up, we went back to Tresford and Fabiola’s. Pastor Stephan was preaching at an evening outreach at 6pm, but it was only 3pm by the time we were back at Tresford’s. Hank and Joyce gave us he option to go home and stay home, or stay the whole evening – through the service. Most people chose to go home, but Ken, Don, Chris, and Hank stayed. When we got home, we finished preparing for tomorrow, and then went back to the Beach House. I read for a bit, and then finished my speech for tomorrow at TOV. We had some dinner, and I played a few rounds of Uno with the boys. Then we headed off to sleep!