Women's Conference Highlights
Women of Faith (Loved)
The Farewell Tour
Conference Highlights
From left to right:
Anna Trent, Patsy Clairmont, Luci Swindoll & Marilyn Meberg
From to bottom:
Sandi Patty, Sheila Walsh, Steve Arterburn, Thelma Wells, Building 429, and Jen Hatmaker
I know not all of my readers are women of faith, and that's okay! Feel free to skip this post if that's your preference, but it was too wonderful an experience for me not to share with those who might be interested. Regular posts will be back later in the week.
If you follow me on social media, you probably saw that last weekend I was at a women's conference. And it was awesome. This year was the 20th year anniversary of this particular event, and also the farewell tour. Starting next year the format will change and there will be several smaller events throughout the year rather than one huge one once per year. Since it was the farewell tour, nearly all the original members and speakers who have been involved since the beginning were present and spoke one final time, so it was kind of special to see all of them together and hear from some wise (and hilarious) older women. It was a Friday evening and all day Saturday conference at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in downtown Lincoln, so I was lucky to have it right here in my backyard and not have to drive too far or spend the night in a hotel.
Please excuse blurry iPhone photos
We had a great worship team, made up of four talented singers from all over the U.S. They opened each session with great worship music and sang with a lot of heart. The four ladies represented Nashville, New York, Dallas & L.A. but meshed together perfectly.
The ladies in the above & below photos are a co-worker of mine (above) who bought me my ticket (thanks again, Kathy!) and her daughter-in-law. It was such a pleasure to go with them and spend some time bonding outside of work.
The crowd successfully converted our emcee, Anna Trent, into a Cornhusker. Can't have 13,000 Nebraskans in a room without someone having a cornhead and starting a "Go Big Red" chant.
Jen Hatmaker has been a favorite of mine ever since the show "My Big Home Family Renovation" aired on HGTV about her family's renovation of an old Texas farmhouse into a modern rustic style home with individual bedrooms for each of three biological kids & two adopted ones. She has an awesome blog that I have been following for a while now, and is an author as well. It was really a privilege getting to hear her speak. She is very real and down to earth but has such an obvious passion for Jesus and for the people around her. #rolemodelstatus
Building 429 put on an awesome show for us in the middle of the second day. A lot of the senior members on the tour referred to them as kids, which was kind of cute and they seemed to enjoy, being married men and fathers in their 30s. I hadn't heard a lot of their music before, but definitely enjoyed them!
Marilyn Meberg--hilarious and gifted. She was great at getting you to think about things in a new way without feeling like she was pushing you. And together with Luci Swindoll (who is pictured towards the bottom of the page) she had so many great stories, many of which involved the two of them getting themselves into some kind of trouble or funny, awkward situation. They were totally
giving me friendship goals.
Above is Patsy Clairmont, a tiny, feisty woman whom I've decided I'd like to be when I grown up, thanksyouverymuch. Like many of the speakers, she is a Christian author, and her books along with many from the other speakers and other items such as CDs, are available at the conference and online.
The two photos above and the two below show Sandi Patty, an incredibly gifted singer, speaker and author. She sang several songs on her own and then invited up her husband and three of their eight children (they are a blended family--the basis of one of her books) to sing along with her. She and her husband sang together "The Prayer" with her singing in English and him in Italian, and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried! I'm definitely emotional when it comes to music. :) She was really just phenomenal, I could have listed to her for a lot longer than the hour and a half she was given.
Below is Luci Swindoll, probably the funniest of the bunch. Such a great, dry sense of humor and excellent comedic timing. I could just sit and listen to her tell stories about her life all day long. She is unmarried, by choice, and got into writing because of a publisher who was interested in the story behind an single Christian woman who didn't desire marriage, but she has written 13 books since that first one. She is well educated, well traveled and a...how shall I say it? Spitfire, 100%.
Luci singing along with the worship team. She was a member of the Dallas Opera for 15 years or so and can still belt it out.
The conference ended with a group discussion from all the speakers. There were a few that I missed, including Thelma Wells, Steve Arterburn, and (one of my favorites) Sheila Walsh. They can be seen here and in the photo at th very top of the post, and they were all wonderful. Sheila was someone I enjoyed immensely, as much for her awesome Scottish accent as her speaking ability and applicable stories.
I've been experiencing a fair amount of stress the last few months and have been feeling a little run-down and this was really an encouraging weekend and just what I needed.
If you're interested in attending a weekend near you, click here to see what dates and locations the tour will be coming to in the future.
I hope this was helpful or interesting to some of you--if you've heard or thought about attending this conference, I definitely recommend it! I know that the future events will be more "young and current" and perhaps a big more relate-able to the younger women out there, but it was so good to see some of these experienced and wise ladies before they retire.
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Marilyn Meberg--hilarious and gifted. She was great at getting you to think about things in a new way without feeling like she was pushing you. And together with Luci Swindoll (who is pictured towards the bottom of the page) she had so many great stories, many of which involved the two of them getting themselves into some kind of trouble or funny, awkward situation. They were totally
giving me friendship goals.
I've been experiencing a fair amount of stress the last few months and have been feeling a little run-down and this was really an encouraging weekend and just what I needed.
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