Higher Things - Day 1

I have so many things to blog about, but things have been so busy I haven't gotten to it. Soon. But anyway, here in North Carolina at Higher Things and will try to post each day, as I have other years. Though I didn't take too many pictures yet . . .

This is how the day started:

We left at 5 am to get down to Mars Hill University in time. But a little later:

We got there in time. The first thing to notice is that the campus is much smaller than last year (Vanderbilt) and so we won't have to do anywhere near as much walking! Also, its probably about 20 degrees cooler here in the mountains of NC - so a lot better that way too.

The chapel here is nice but rather small, so this conference had a max of 300. We either met it or got rather close because the chapel was full. That's good for singing. Dr. Fickenscher from the Ft. Wayne Seminary is the first of our two plenary speakers, and guess who made it onto the stage during his first session?

Yes, our own Miss Juliana was part of the "human timeline" Dr. Fickenscher put together to talk about where the Reformation fit into history.

The first Breakaway sessions were after dinner and Evening Prayer, and I had one of these first slots. It's tough at the end of a long day, but it went pretty well. I had better than expected attendance - filled the room they put me in. My topic this year is: Should Christianity Be Legal? to get the kids thinking not only about threats to Christianity in our world today but how we think about ourselves as Christians, learning some lessons from history. I'm up again today in the second afternoon session, right before dinner.

We also got to see some fireworks last night - I love fireworks! A good cap to the day. I took a short video of the finale, but think I accidentally deleted it on my phone. :-(  Yes, technology bites me in the butt again.

Well, off to shower now . . .