With God all things are possible, that’s for sure. I’m a living witness of that! I am bundled with a multitude of emotions as I reflect on my first experience as a conference coordinator. It all went extremely well, so I’m excited about that and I’m well pleased. But I’m also glad that it’s over! However, I’m looking forward to the next one. Yes, the association has already called me and asked me to coordinate the 2010 conference. Plus, I have visions and ideas for future events that I want to do on my own outside of the association and for my own ministry, my church, as well as for myself. Can you say that I’m on a roll! I would also like to work with other people to do events for them. Yes, I’m on a roll! This first conference was the Unity in Our Community of Sisters Women’s Christian Conference sponsored by the Counties of Mississippi Baptist District Association out of Jackson, Mississippi held at the Camp Garaywa Conference Center in Clinton, MS. God first blessed me with the theme and scripture for the event once I was told what the objective of the conference was about. It was to bring the women of the association together so that we could work together. Our theme scripture was: “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member’s one of another.” Romans 12:4-5 I am not going to go into every detail about the planning of this conference, but I will share the week leading up to it. Let me say this though. This last month has been THE most difficult month of my life probably. I am under tremendous pressure, stress, challenges, and extreme attack from the enemy that every aspect of my life is affected. Health, finances, family, mental health, death in family, and issues that I will not mention. I don’t know how I was able to put one foot in front of the other, let alone go through with the conference. Yet, it was by the grace of God that He allowed me to find the strength, energy, and mindset to do so, and for that I praise Him! Again, with God, all things are possible! From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to be one of the speakers. That may have been odd, but God put it in my heart to do so. In addition, there were three other very gifted and anointed women. What a great group of women, each different in their gifts, but perfect for this conference.
Each woman was unique and had a different message to lend to our attendees. Yet, everything fit together like a web of unity as was necessary. Unfortunately, at the very last minute, Dana was not able to make it due to a situation out of her control. My first thought was to panic, but I understood as being a mother. I realized that I could not lose my head and knew that God was in control of this and all would still work out. I asked Dana to send our sisters a word of encouragement, and that she did. It was a powerful word and I not only gave a copy to each of the women, but I also read it to them. They were rejoicing as I shared it. That’s how blessed they were by the words that came from her heart. See, Dana and I, just as I and the other speakers, had been in contact all along, and I knew how excited Dana was and what she wanted to bring forth to the women. I knew where her heart was and the passion that she had. So in my mind, she was still very much a part of this conference in every way. However, I’d planned the conference on a time schedule and it was too late to find another speaker to fill that space. So my only option was to step up the plate and do something myself. I decided to do a mini-workshop so I used something that I’d taught before. That was
“The Weight of Unforgiveness”, which I had handouts that included a Personal Reflection section that allows you to take a deep look at yourself. The teaching was to encourage attendees that forgiveness is for them and that they cannot move forward in their lives with unforgiveness holding them down and back. As a result of this workshop, many women came forward for prayer, and with confession, and were delivered in areas that some have never even discussed before. Women were set free and released from the bondage of unforgiveness!
Lacha was our first speaker and she set the place on fire! She is a powerful speaker who also serves as an associate
Lacha J. Mitchell
minister at No Greater Love Christian Church in Durham, NC. However, Lacha does NOT cling to title or even carry it as a badge of honor. She is extremely humble and her joy is the sheer fact that she is a servant of God and that she is able to minister to God’s people. She spoke to the women and encouraged them in every way that they needed. She shared herself with us and held nothing back. She told us how to be good wives, good women, good servants of God, good church members, good mothers, and good to ourselves. She shared her powerful testimony about being 6 years cancer-free now and how her daughter is also now cancer-free. She had us laughing, crying, rejoicing, clapping. The women loved her and want her back at our next conference.
We had wonderful door prizes throughout the conference. Beautiful gifts and gift certificates, which included a $100.00 gift card donated by Dixon’s Boutique of Hazlehurst, Mississippi. We had fun ice breakers as well. One was facilitated by my daughter, Tiffanie, whom didn’t expect to do so. I recruited her to do so as we talked about it during the week. She was hesitant because she’s very shy, but I encouraged her. She did a fantastic job and everyone enjoyed it. The purpose of this ice breaker was to get everyone to mingle and to get to meet someone else. Out of this event, new relationships and networking were made and many women said that they exchanged information and would remain in contact.
Naudia F. Simpson
After lunch, our next speaker was Naudia. Her focus was on fashion and the importance of treating women kindly in the church. She stressed that we can easily run people away from the church just by our tone with them. She also talked about creative ways of organizing activities in the church. She was high spirited and had great energy. We thoroughly enjoyed all that she had to offer.
I was the last speaker and spoke out of my latest experience. God had given me Romans 8:28 – 39 which covers “All things work together for good for them that love God…..” to “…..If God be for us, who can be against us….” to “…..We are more than conquerors…..” to “…..Nothing shall separate us from the love of God…” I encourage you to read the entire passage. There is so much meat in there. But God had spoken to me as to what to speak, who I was speaking to, how to present it, etc. He truly blessed and moved mightily in my presentation. I give all honor and glory to God. Afterwards, a couple of sisters came up to me and told me that I was speaking exactly to them! Praise God.
I had little to no budget to work with for things like decorations and other items, but somehow God provided. I had the vision of pink. Well, actually, I love soft pretty pinks and lavenders as I think it’s dainty and delicate as women are. Doesn’t mean weakness, just means beauty. So, I made pink roses as the centerpiece for the head table and designed pink cups with pink carnations for the tables with the 54 attendees. I made table place settings (table tents) with all attendees names in dark pink ink with a beautiful font. It also had their church names on the cards. Tiffanie helped me set up the room and we assured that we shuffled the place settings. We did not sit church members together. We didn’t want cliques or familiar groups mingling together. The purpose was to bring attendees together. One of our ice breakers did exactly that as well. I had Tiffanie to facilitate that one. With their name badges, each attendee was given a number. These numbers paired them with someone else unbeknownst to them. At the appointed time, they had to find that person and for about 5 minutes, talk with that person and get to know them. Then they had to come before the entire group and introduce their partner. Many connections were made from that ice breaker, it was great!
So much happened during this experience. I loved our facility. We had use of the entire building. Tiffanie and I set up the meeting room and I just could not rest until I felt that everything was perfect that night before. I walked that room just “feeling” it. At about 2:00 am, I told Tiffanie to go on to her room (we slept there) and that I would finish. I made packets for each attendees and put all of those out on the tables as well. I wanted the room ready in the morning. The only thing we would need to do would be to set out the Continental breakfast (donuts, fruit, brew the coffee, juice, milk). I left the meeting room around 3:30 am.
Got to my room, ironed my outfit and showered. I usually like to shower in the morning when I’m ready to go, but I’m glad I listened to that voice within. After showering, I turned on some praise music (glad I brought my CD player as there was no television or even a phone in the room because this was a retreat center) to meditate and my plan was to go over my speech some more. I guess I fell asleep because the next thing I remember as I was awakened sitting up in the bed was Sis. Jacks knocking on my door. It was 7:15 am. She was fully dressed and had called me on my cell phone, but I didn’t hear it ring. I’d closed the door and turned the lights off in the meeting room and she wanted to know how to get in. Man, I panicked because it was my plan to be there no later than 7:00 am. The conference was to begin at 8:00 am. I wanted to set up the Registration area and just be there. I felt that there was no way I would be there on time. I remember thinking how happy I was that I’d already showered and ironed my clothes and done so much the night before!
Well, I made it! And I still can’t say enough how wonderfully God blessed our conference. It was a tremendous experience. So many women were uplifted, touched, delivered, and enjoyed the day. The feedback from the comments card were all positive and encouraging.
I have received calls since the conference from some to work with them in their own ministries and some great things are coming out of this. I look forward to doing so much more.
I will share a few pictures here; some I took, some taken by Lacha. And I’m awaiting pictures taken by others. I will share those as soon as I get them.
Carla Nix and Lacha Mitchell
