Annual meeting

Last weekend we had the opportunity of attending Central Plains Mennonite Conference's annual meeting in Des Moines, IA. This was the third year in a row we've gotten to go, and by now we're recognizing familiar faces and even looking forward to meeting up with folks again. Our kids also love the event (despite Jonathan's stance suggesting otherwise in the photo above); they too have friends that they look forward to seeing at conference once a year. This year they played with the kids of four different people I went to Bethel with (married to two people Ramont went to Goshen with) - and we got to hang out with their parents!

 It was held at a university (Grand View), with lots of nice new buildings and this walkway that provided hours of entertainment (and only a small(ish) amount of roughhousing with those peace-raised kids mentioned above).

 I enjoyed the conference very much - even sitting in the delegate sessions and listening to "business." Other highlights were the worship services, with speaker Leonard Dow (he was our MCC service program coordinator when I was in Washington D.C. 15 years ago), workshops (particularly one on the benefits of weekly communion by Christopher Montgomery), an hour-long a capela hymn sing after supper one evening, and the Sunday morning worship service with high-church Mennonite liturgy in a Jewish synagogue. That was probably the highest highlight of the weekend.

 People-watching is also always fun at these events (talking to them is not that bad, either).

I've agreed to serve on the Outreach and Service Committee for the conference, and all new committee members were blessed into their new work.

The children's activities were fantastic, as usual, thanks to really hard-working, dedicated volunteers. Attendance was up this year - more than 30 kids through 6th grade.

I obviously didn't take many pictures, and in fact have been taking almost none this entire summer. Let's just say Jonathan now has a remote control helicopter and a remote control monster gator and both are battery guzzlers.