And Back Again

I arrived in Bellingham, Washington, yesterday around 4:30pm. We only had a 20 minute delay at Seattle. I guess we made it out of Chicago just in time before they had a big snow storm.

The flight was late arriving on Monday when I left. It was an odd day. Towns 20 miles south of Bellingham had schools cancelled that day, but Bellingham didn't have any snow on the ground. So we got to SeaTac just fine. And there wasn't any snow on the ground at the airport, but towns around Seattle had school cancellations. When I got there, the board said the flight to Chicago was delayed 2 hours because of wind in Chicago. Thankfully, I ran into other Covenant pastors, so we had lunch together (it was nice to have others to hang out with). After 12:30, they said we'd be boarding around 1:15 with a 1:30 take off. It was probably around 1:30 when we got on the plane. Then we sat for another hour, waiting for clearance from air traffic control--and it started snowing some and had to wait to have the wings de-iced. But at 2:30 we finally took off and arrived in Chicago (with the bumpiest decent I've ever experienced--but I can imagine trying to land a plane in 20-30mph wind with gusts up to 50) around 8:30 local time. There was a line up for the shuttle to the airport. We finally got on the third one and arrived at the hotel around 10pm. Needless to say, we missed the 7pm worship with Gordon MacDonald. It was a long day.

The conference was great. When I say this, I'm not putting down other denominations at all--I just don't have experience with them--but I love the Covenant. They do a wonderful job of taking care of their people. On Wednesday night, during the worship service, one pastor gave testimony of having his ordination revoked a few years ago. After the death of his son, he got into gambling. Eventually others found out about it, people from the denomination confronted him and eventually he lost his ministerial standing. But the story doesn't end there. He was disciplined, cared for and prayed for along the way as he got the help he needed. And after a long struggle into recovery and healing, he was re-ordained. That night the North Park University Gospel Choir sang (they're always uplifting) and Pastor Griffin from Oakdale Covenant in Chicago preached on the story of the 12 spies sent into the promised land. 10 of them came back telling Moses that they needed to turn around because the promised land was inhabited by unbeatable giants. Caleb and Joshua told Moses that the land was indeed flowing with milk and honey and that God had promised it to them, so they should get ready to enter. Pastor Griffin preached about how we can't let the facts (there were giants in the land) stand in the way of the truths (God had promised the land to the Israelites) in our ministries and lives. It was what I needed to hear then.

The whole conference was what I needed. The workshops I attended gave me some good lessons. The worship was uplifting. And the people were encouraging. It's wonderful just to have time to talk and pray with others there. So, thank you for your prayers.

And it's good to be home.