Sunday, January 29, 2012

More on REFRESH

I only have about 25 minutes before I need to leave on the shuttle back to Mankato, but I wanted to take time to let you know just how amazing my day was yesterday.

I must confess (and those of you who read my blog and have for a while) that I have been running low on the passion department lately. I've been doing adoption work for 12 years now, and the last several months I have just been tired. Tired of the system, tired of the time it takes kids to end up in permanent homes, tired of families not getting support.

But going to Refresh renewed that passion -- the passion to find homes for kids who need parents. And meeting people like Andrew and Michele, hearing speakers like Deborah Grey and Ron Ruthruff, and meeting tons of parents like Tracy who has read my blog for years was amazing. Then there was seeing Karen, Karen, and Jeannie .... how fun was THAT ... and just being surrounded by people who were saying how much my words had impacted them -- the whole thing was overwhelming.

The evening ended with dinner out and a conversation with Johnston Moore and Andrew Schneider that was so thought provoking -- regarding the purpose of the church in regards to the orphan challenge. Got me really doing some serious thinking and I want to discuss that further on my blog in the weeks to come.

But now I need to go catch that shuttle and head back to reality. Sigh.

Next year's REFRESH conference is going to be on February 8-9th and rumor has it they are going to have me back -- and maybe even Bart too!

Great great event. I'm really glad I went.

2 comments:

Christoph said...

Listened to you twice at Refresh, and was so encouraged. Thanks for coming!

Tracy said...

Marking my calendar now.