Siesta Fiesta and all the Resta

This first picture shows Cindy, her sister, Sharon, our new friend Debbie who has recently returned to the US from working in East Asia, and me at the end of the event.

What an absolutely awesome time we had in San Antonio!! My friend, Cindy, and I left on Wednesday and flew into San Antonio. We had dinner with her sister and her family at a yummy Greek restaurant and then headed back to the hotel to get some rest and prepare for Thursday.

On Thursday we went out to Oak Hills Church where Max Lucado is the pastor to attend the Lifeway Fully Loaded event. After some wonderful praise and worship time led by Kelly Minter (see Kelly below), we broke up into smaller groups for training.

I chose the Mentoring track which was led by Janet Thompson of Saddleback Church in California. I would very much like to see a formal mentoring ministry for ladies birthed in our local area and Janet has developed a kit that is sold by Lifeway that is a turnkey operation for beginning a mentoring program. At this point I am just praying for ladies to step alongside of me who have a heart for mentoring.

After a very full afternoon in our sessions, we spent time in praise and worship with Travis Cottrell. That man truly knows how to take you to the throne of grace in worship. I simply cannot sing “In Christ Alone” without being reduced to tears. It is such a beautiful song and is the salvation message in it’s complete form.

We were incredibly blessed by Margaret Kennedy as she brought the Word to us in our final hour at the Fully Loaded Event. She is a dynamic speaker who is very, very real. I was thoroughly blessed and extremely challenged by her message.

Confession time—on Friday, Cindy and I did not go back to Fully Loaded, but rather spent some girltime with her sister. We went out to Gruene, Tx to Buck Pottery. Pictures of this to be added later!! You don’t know about Buck Pottery!! Oh my goodness!! It is only the most beautiful pottery that I have laid eyes on lately. Let me just say the folks at Buck Pottery were mighty glad we showed up on Friday. After we shopped, we ate lunch at the Grist Mill restaurant in Gruene where we gorged ourselves on yummy salads, to die for onion rings and strawberry shortcake!!

Full of excitement and anticipation at meeting so many Siestas, we headed off to the Alamodome to check in.

After much texting back and forth ( are you there yet? where are you? have you checked in at the hotel yet? ) I finally met Stephanie (Ocean Mommy). She and I live only about an hour or so apart here in Georgia but we had never met. Be assured, we will be spending some time together again soon. She is the most adorable thing with a huge smile that just lights up the room. I just loved her the minute I laid eyes on her. See what I mean in this picture!!

Next I spotted a suspicious looking group of women standing around visiting. I thought I recognized a face or two in the group and so I just walked right up to them and introduced myself. In this picture you see Alene, me, Annette, Melissa, and Shonda.

Here is a picture of Shonda and our very own Siesta cookbook maven, Holly at Crown Laid Down.

This picture is one that I was so excited about getting because it meant that I got to meet two of my Speaking Thru Me ministry partners. On the left is Alene and in the middle is Ginger. These are two awesome women and I am honored to be in ministry with them. I wish had had more time to spend visiting but hopefully soon we will.

The one on the right with the very flat, very short hair is me. I love my hair short but after looking at these pictures, perhaps it is a little too short….especially if there is humidity… and there was major humidity in Texas.

Alene, Ginger and I were honored to have our picture taken with Amanda Moore Jones, Beth Moore’s daughter. Amanda was so gracious and just precious as she visited with us. She is expecting a little one in about 6 months and is absolutely glowing. I so would have loved to meet Melissa and given her a big Georgia (north Georgia) welcome.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the actual Siesta Fiesta where we who blog got to spend some time with Beth, Amanda and Melissa in a more intimate ( if 700 people can be intimate ) setting. We all got in groups of about 50 or so and had pictures taken with the three Moore girls. Beth is front and center in this picture, Amanda is kneeling on the far right, Melissa is in the back just to bit to the right of center. I am kneeling just to the left and behind Beth, between a lady in brown and a lady in a green t-shirt like mine.

Beth brought, and I mean BROUGHT, us an awesome word from the Word about Inheritance and how He is our inheritance and we are HIS inheritance. Can you even imagine? Someone with a past like mine being an inheritance to Christ!!

The Lord spoke to me in a huge way this weekend and confirmed and clarified some things that I have been pondering and praying about. Perhaps I’ll blog about those later on, but for now, He and I are still working the ‘thing’ through.

I’ll be adding more pics I hope and probably more words as I have a chance to ponder all that happened this weekend so please check back for more!!