by Mrs. Lynea Sander
God’s own child, I gladly say it:
I am baptized into Christ!
He, because I could not pay it,
Gave my full redemption price.
Do I need earth’s treasures many?
I have one worth more than any
That brought me salvation free
Lasting to eternity!
Today’s theme: Baptism, FOR YOU!
WORSHIP
Today started out, as it has for us at every conference, with Matins. Baptism was sung, read and preached to us – a wonderful way to start the day! My group, unfortunately, missed Vespers (though I heard it was just as good as the previous services) due to an adventure in the Blue Ridge Mountains (see that story below). Evening Prayer was beautiful as always, accompanied this evening by a procession and incense. Compline was offered tonight, as well, in three places: first, in the smaller Rutland chapel, second, in the Prayer Garden; third, at the Mountain Laurel Fire Ring, where the participants chanted Compline around a campfire.
WORK
Two plenary sessions, two breakaways and the beginning of the In-Depth sectionals were planned for us today. Pr. Kuhlman his plenaries on how Salvation was acheived for us, and Pr. Cwirla began his on how it is delivered to us. My husband and I attended Pr. Huebel’s breakaway on the history and identity of the Antichrist and Pr. Wierschke’s breakaway on the difference between “a Lutheran and a Lutheran” – differences between the synods. For our In-Depth we chose “Pastor Unplugged” with Pr. Mallie – a free-for-all question and answer session, also dubbed “stump the pastor”. The youth came up with some excellent questions, which Pr. Mallie answered very well. I can’t wait for the next two sessions to see what else they come up with!
PLAY
During our free time today, my youth group decided to take a drive out to Pisgah National Forest to swim and see the Sliding Rock we’d heard about (a natural water slide where the river had smoothed out a large rock). Now, we’re from southeast Texas. We’re not used to mountains. Mountains take longer to drive through – something we didn’t take into account when we left this morning – thus, we missed Vespers. It was, however, a beautiful drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains!
Wednesdays are always fun for me, since we’re getting into the swing of things, but we still have one and a half days of conference goodness!
Keep a lookout tomorrow for an article from one of the “staff lackeys”, Erin Stephens. Due to a few technical difficulties, we don’t have pictures yet, but look for those to be added to the articles soon!
