October 12, 2012

2012 Global Impact Celebration (GIC)
First Baptist Church, Rogers AR

Day 3

I love getting to stay at Cathy’s house. I always like staying there when I house/dog sit. It’s even better with Cathy at home!

I got to the church a little early for the 11am Staff luncheon. It was nice to chat with some of the staff that I hadn’t seen yet. Our speaker was from the Arkansas Children’s Home. He had a great presentation of all of the services for many types of people. I enjoyed it very much.

At my table was a John Ambra from Guidestone. That organization does the insurance and retirement stuff for many churches and missionaries. I have been on an extension of the group plan at FBC that I had when I was on staff. I have been paying the premium myself, but have had the great benefit of being under a group plan. That situation will end on Dec 31, 2012, so I had been concerned about finding other health coverage that I could afford. The group plan was costing me $300 per month. I figured I would have to pay $500-600 a month for really bad coverage on my own. But God had worked out a miracle for me last week. I was able to change to a ‘retiree group plan’ since I’m 55 years old. I will have the same good coverage that I have now, and the premium will be $450 per month. It’s a lot of money, but it’s good coverage and much better than I was anticipating.

After the luncheon, I told John that I really appreciated that Guidestone had a plan that I could benefit from. It was a lifesaver for me and major stress reliever. He said he would pass that info on to the main office. A little while later, he stopped me in the hall and asked if he could video my thanks on his phone. I said sure and we taped me explaining how much I appreciated Guidestone working things out for me. I hope that many, many people will be benefited by this and other plans. I’m so thankful for a Christian company that is trying to take care of God’s workers in their difference situations.

One of the sweet girls from the puppet/creative ministries team is Stephanie. She is in college now and asked if her friend could interview me for her class project. It is a combination of photography and writing. I was thrilled. I love telling what God is doing in my life, in Nica and everywhere! We had fun and I was very blessed by these two sweet girls.

I ran to Walmart to pick up the last of the items that I was going to bring back to my Nica friends. Then I met the Hulseys, Charlie Brown and 3 couples from my ‘host’ Adult Bible Fellowship class for dinner at Golden Corral. It was good food and great conversation. We then headed to the church for some ABF breakout sessions sharing about our ministries. One of the guys had driven their little sportscar. He put the top down and gave Manuel (Mike and Sherry’s son) a ride to the church. They even drove around the parking lot a few times. Manuel thought he was big stuff! It was fun to see him.

I got to speak to people from a couple of classes. We had fun laughing and talking. It was a dessert fellowship, so there was lots of yummy sweets. I had eaten too much dinner (not stuffed, but full) so I didn’t partake of the sweets. It was a good tradeoff though, because I had lots of meat and veggies at dinner. Anyway, the fellowship was even sweeter!

I got back to Cathy’s and was very tired. It was nice to just put on my jammies and jump in bed. I was very thankful for God’s provision of peace and just enough energy to get through the week! He is Faithful!