What a weekend! I don't even know where to start!

We had over 175 attendees this weekend (25-30 of them were mentors)!!!! What a praise! Our main speaker, Shannon, reminded me that when I had initially emailed her I said there would probably be 50 girls...we tripled that number! Check out pictures at the bottom of this post.

I was extremely nervous on Friday night just because the girls weren't really responding during worship or during the message like I had hoped, but at the end I had a young woman in tears come up to me and say, "I didn't want to come tonight but this was the best thing for me! Thank you!" Then, a mom came up to me and said, "I know this was meant for my daughter, but what Shannon said tonight was meant for me!" So encouraging! You can read more of Shannon's experience and talks from this weekend on her blog.

God is so good and he showed that time and time and time again this weekend. I had a wonderful team of volunteers who made it all happen! It was really neat for me personally, because my mom came for the weekend. She lead two workshops on Saturday but Friday night she was just walking around snapping pictures. Having her there was awesome for me!

A HUGE thank you to my hubby! He was such a huge support to me throughout the weekend. I wouldn't have been able to keep going without him. He gave up 2 straight days for these young women, and manned the cafe throughout the weekend. THANKS MATT!

On a more personal note, this weekend was a milestone for me. For the first time since moving up here, I feel like I have a true church family. I sent out an email to some people to pray because of the flight issues, and it got on the church prayer chain. I had people asking all weekend if the speakers got in okay and telling me that they were praying. On Sunday I was bombarded with questions of how the weekend went. Our church even left up some of the decorations so people could get a taste of what it was like. That meant a lot to me, especially since I have struggled with not feeling so much a part of this church body.

Lastly, thank you to all who were praying. It was obvious that God had huge plans and Satan was trying to thwart those plans on several occasions. Your prayers interceded for us this weekend and I just wanted to say Thank you!

I am sure that I will be thinking of things to post throughout the week, but you can also check out Heather's blog for more from this weekend.

There was a comment left on one of the comment cards that made it all worth while to me: "It meant a lot to me being here. I tend to be the outcast everywhere and I don't socialize with people but I was able to open up a little and make some friends. Thank you!"