Our Trip to the Ozarks: Part 1

Our family, minus Josh, who stayed home to take care of the chickens, dogs, and chores, went to the Second Annual Shindig, hosted by No Greater Joy Ministries (nogreaterjoy.org). This was a 3-day conference full of fellowship with like-minded believers, teaching sessions on family-related matters, and plenty of opportunities for the girls to meet new friends. I plan to blog about some of the teachings that were covered in the seminars. We have studied and listened to Michael Pearl's teachings for years, and there are few scholars we have found that we trust as much as him. The reason for this is that he teaches the Bible, verse by verse, without adding his "opinion of interpretation". He doesn't think of "topics" to preach about to keep his audience enraptured; he faithfully preaches the Word of God, and trusts that it is enough (which it is). (We also like Alister Begg, who also does expository teaching, Nancy Leigh DeMoss for her faithful ministry to teach Godly Womanhood, and Ravi Zacharias). Anyway, we stayed at the Windemere Resort in Roach, MO, a very small town with basically only a post office. It was only around $45 per night for our economy cabin, which had everything we needed to house us comfortably. The other thing that impressed me was that the meal tickets for the cafeteria were only $5 per person, per meal. These meals were very well made (including pot roast with the fixings, pork loin, pasta and fixings), and each meal also had a salad bar and a dessert available. Two thousand people attended the conference, so the only setback was the long lines, but it really didn't take overly long to get your meal. An interesting statistic comparing the two years of the Shindig is family size. The average family size last year was 5.4 and this year it was 6.9. I LOVED seeing the large families and well-behaved, well-trained children (mostly). These families are undeniable proof that correctly instituted biblical child-training works. They had fellowship and games planned each night for the two groups of teens: those under 18, and those over 18. Last year they had 6 marriages of young people result from these supervised gatherings! Most of you know that we don't like the usual method of dating, which almost invariably leads to premarital sex, but we REALLY enjoyed this idea of Godly young men and women getting to know each other in a group setting. Last year's marriage statistics proved it can work! As I have said before, anyone can date and hop from person to person from a young age, but it takes a special heart for God to wait until you are old enough to get married, and then see who God might have in mind for you. Next I hope to share what we learned at some of the classes, so until next time....