Bentley

Hello family, this will be short because I'm trying to catch up on work after having been gone for several days. I just wanted to give a brief report about the weekend though and share some pictures. :)

Bethany, Ryan and I left Kirksville at 4am on Thursday, stopped in Columbia and picked up Colin and the Skinner's SUV (very nice!), then stopped around 7am in Rolla at Hardee's and ate breakfast with Stephen. It was nice to get to see him briefly. The rest of the trip went pretty well, we only went crazy a few times and made it just in time for the first message. The whole weekend was very refreshing, just to be around so many Christians and it seemed like the Lord was really present. The messages were all really encouraging, and full of truth. I think I got the most out of Charles' messages, haha. Yes I drove 15 hours to hear Charles preach! He spoke about Abraham and how His covenant with Abraham is our covenant too, and the Mosaic covenant is old! The biggest thing that stuck out to me was how God didn't see something good in Isaac (and not in Ishmael)so as to merit God's blessing, but Isaac wasn't even in the picture at all and God brought him forth even though it seemed impossible. Charles just brought out that's how it is for us Christians. There's nothing good in us that merits eternal blessing, but God brings us forth from death to life. I don't know if that made sense but it was really a blessing to me.

I got to spend some time with the LaCour girls and was really encouraged by them. Lauren (26) is a speech-language pathologist in a school in Baton Rouge and she speaks Spanish, so we had lots and lots to talk about! Megan (24)and I had been fairly close at the Bentley camps in the past , so it was fun to catch up with her too. I'm hoping they'll come up and visit soon. There were lots of other highlights but those are the main things.

The trip home was good, but almost unbearable towards the end (We all went a little crazy...Mostly Colin). We stopped for about an hour in Rolla and ate at Pizza Hut with Stephen, Nick and Grant. It was nice to get to spend some time with them. Anyway, here are a couple pictures, love you all! Thanks for praying for the time. :)