conference

To Senga Bay for the Personnel Conference. A time of spiritual renewal for missionaries. Almost all the azungu from nkhoma and this year that was most of the participants (one from Lilongwe). It is a long weekend with Labor Day being Monday so we stayed 3 nights. Lee Baas (formerly US missionary to Philippines now an unaffiliated counselor for missionaries) came in to talk to us about “being steadfast and renewing a right spirit within.” The meetings were in the evenings and the mornings. I attended the evening sessions and watched the kids during the morning ones. There were 13 kids from 9 months to 14 years…7 couldn’t swim on their own—3 were fearless and not too worried about it…4 wouldn’t get close to the water without people and floats which was good because the wind and therefore the waves were up all weekend! It was fun and the big kids love playing with the little ones so it wasn’t a hard job.
The wind was strong starting at about 2am Friday night…so the evenings were cool but our accommodations didn’t seem to cool off…hot and stuffy until we’d been asleep for a while. One tent was destroyed and two were moved to be a little more sheltered behind the buildings. I was in the room with 8 beds and a varying number of girls…the stars were amazing at night…the milky way was very obvious as was the southern cross (but those are the only things I can pick out in this sky).
We had a kayak and an inflatable boat—there had been a rumor about a motor boat but the only one we saw was on the beach for repairs and renovations…no skiing but lots of fun. The waves were big enough to ride in on the kayak or body surf!