Women of Faith - Part 4

Typically when I go to Massachusetts it is to visit relatives. My parents grew up just south of Boston & my aunt & grandfather & miscellaneous cousins & other assundry relatives still live there. Needless to say it's been a LONG time since I did much exploring of Boston itself. I did go down about six or so years ago with a girlfriend & we did part of the Freedom Trail but we didn't stay in Boston.

For Women of Faith - we stayed right in Boston at the Boston Park Plaza hotel. It definitely had that "old" feel to it like it had been there for a really long time. We picked this hotel since there was a T-station just up the block - in site of the hotel. We arrived on Thursday evening only to find that it was CLOSED due to construction! ::sigh:: The next T-station was not that far away, but still, it was the principal of thing!

After getting directions the next morning we set off in the crowd of commuters to the T-station. What an experience. Now, I have to tell you. In the past few weeks my hubby told me I was a city girl at heart. Honey, I'm telling you right now, I am so NOT a city girl. I may not be as country as I like to think and I may be more of a "suburbs" type gal, but I am so not a city girl. Trust me.

Thank goodness Tammy travels a lot for her job & showed my sister & I the ins & outs of the T. We bought a "Charlie" card for the weekend & that was pretty painless. We even got back some of the new presidential dollar coins as change.

And of course, to prove we rode the T - we had to take photos. Whenever you travel with scrapbookers, plan for LOTS of photos to be taken!

Tammy & I
Tammy & Beth

Now the T ride that morning wasn't too bad. We didn't have to be to the Garden until about 10am. However, as the weekend progressed I was very happy to realize we would be driving in the next day!! But let me continue for a bit before I go in to that part....

The Friday pre-confernece was excellent as I have already talked about. It went from 10am to 3:30pm. The concierge at the hotel had told us it was about a 30 minute walk from the hotel to the Garden. We opted for the T that morning but thought we could easily walk back that afternoon. It was a bright sunny day & we could check out some of Boston. Hah! Famous last words.

We headed out & soon connected with the Freedom Trail. Now this is actually a really cool thing about Boston. So much of our country's freedom started right here in this port town. The city has put in a "red path" that you can follow & it will take you to all these historic places from Faneuil Hall to Paul Revere's House. We had grand ideas we'd see quite a bit on our walk back to the hotel. We were wrong.

We saw this behind the Old North Church.

The "fence" is actually lots & lots & lots of dog tags hanging.

We chose not to stand in yet another line to get in to see the inside of the church. It is beautiful in there & I highly recommend it. In fact, when we finally get around to studying American history here I'm planning to take my boys down & walk the whole trail checking it all out.

The statue of Paul Revere just down from the Old North Church.

As you can see we also made it to Paul Revere's house. I've been inside here before as well & it's again a neat place. You do have to pay to get in to some of these spots & this is on place you had to pay so we opted not to do this. A lot of them will also not allow photography or flash photography either. In fact, when I went to both the Old North Church & Paul Revere's house last time I just bought postcards with photos of the inside of both spots.

And of course, the North End isn't complete without cobblestone on the roads.

At this stage of the day I was getting hot & my blood sugar had dropped to about 70 which is the lowest normal number. We did find a CVS drugstore near here & I bought an apple juice that I completely drained in about five seconds. I felt better.

We got back on the T though at the Government Center & took that back to the hotel. We should have had about a three hour break before needing to be back for the start of the regular Women of Faith Conference that started back at 7pm. We had an hour. ::sigh:: I ended up taking a cool shower & completely changing my clothes. Did I mention it had been a warm day?

So - back to the T rides...

The conference Saturday night was just as great, but many women only come in for the main conference (Friday night & Saturday). There were hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of women there. I think most needed the Green Line out of the Garden. This was the first time all day we had to wait more than five minutes for the T. They sent an entirely empty train just for us. I even got a seat as did Tammy but Beth stood next to her. Oh my - here's where my neurosis started to show. At the next stop we had more people get on the already completely full train! Whatever happened to personal space?? Yikes!

This continued at each stop. Very few people were getting off but many were pushing to get on. I rarely saw anyone look at how full the train was & not try to get on - it happened - but VERY infrequently. I kid you not - by the time we did get off - about 30 minutes later - I could feel myself shaking. I do not like closed spaces & I certainly did NOT like all those strangers in my personal space! Phew!

We drove to the Garden the next morning & paid way less for parking there than we had for the two days at the hotel (wow!!!). We even got out to the highway without any issue & headed down to my aunt's house for the remainder of Saturday night.

It was a great weekend spent with friends.

Oh & before I forget...my brother asked about the lines to the bathroom. Can you tell he's been married a while?? ::grin:: They actually "converted" all men's room on the Concourse to women's bathrooms except for one. Of course, they only had three stalls in them compared to the eight or so in the women's bathroom. I started sneaking out a few minutes before breaks so I wouldn't have to wait in line. Then about mid-way on Saturday we discovered by going down just one floor there was another set of bathrooms there that most of the women had not discovered yet so the lines were either non-existent or very short!

Women of Faith - Part 3

The first two photos here didn't really fit with another category but I wanted to share anyway.


This photo was taken on Friday at the pre-conference. Again, all photos in these posts are courtesy of my wonderful sister who has a MUCH better digital camera than I do!!! ;-) Friday's pre-conference was general admission seating. THIS is how high we were & how far away we were. You can also see the draping behind the stage. On Saturday that was gone & the entire stadium seating that you can see behind that which is empty was FULL of women. In fact, there were a number of women way up in the balcony as well. Thank goodness they had the big megatron monitors. ;-)
Here we all are at Friday lunch. A lady in front of us was nice enough to take our photo. I'm on the left in white, my sister is in the middle & our great friend Tammy is on the end. We had SUCH a great time together at this conference & can't wait to go back next year.

Patsy Clairmont spoke both Friday & Saturday. Wow does this lady have some energy!!! She's just a little powerhouse. Her talks were very good. So good I actually bought her book. She has great comedic timing & we always laughed during her talks. I found a short video on YouTube that has Patsy plugging the very book I bought. I have yet to really delve in to it, but it's definitely on my to do list. Once I do, I'll be sure to post a review.

I'm going to just admit right now that Patsy, Anita & Nicole Johnson plus the singing were my absolutely very bits of the whole conference. However, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the rest, but I may not have as much to say! ;-)

Marilyn Meberg was another great speaker. Again, all of the speakers did a great job of mixing comedy with truth & it made for very enjoyable listening.

Steve Arterburn is the founder of the Women of Faith tours. He spoke on Friday night & was also very good. After seeing so many women up on that stage though it was a bit odd! LOL

Sheila Walsh was another speaker on Friday night & Saturday for the main conference. Again very good. She did a funny talk when her son "broke in" to give her a message (via video). Very cute. She is also an excellent singer.

Louise Duart was the last speaker on Saturday. What a funny lady!!! She's a fantastic impressionist. She did a Cher impression that was priceless but I think my favorite was when she did Milton Berle! Really, really funny! She also does a fantastic impression of Carol Burnett. In fact, she shared with us how she had done one that Carol Burnett herself was able to view & she was able to meet her in person. Here's a cute & short clip from YouTube for a quick little laugh.

She also talked about her first marriage which broke up after her husband had an affair & asked for a divorce. She has since remarried & her & her new husband have written a book called Couples Who Pray & they challenge couples to pray for 40 days for five minutes a day. Below is the link plus an interview they did on the 700 club. Check it out. It's really good.

http://www.coupleswhopray.com/

Women of Faith - Part 2

Many of you out there in the cyberworld may recognize this lady here....

Her name is Anita Renfroe. Remember the "Momsense" video over at YouTube. The one where the mom sings to the William Tell Overture all the things that moms say in a 24 hour period? This is the lady who does that & yes, she did perform it. She was absolutely HILARIOUS! We were so blessed to not only have her at the regular conference on Saturday but she was also at the pre-conference on Friday. Talk about funny! I don't think I've ever laughed so much. She is just great.




I would be remiss if I didn't also post the link to her "Dadsense" video. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend checking it out here.

Okay, I could fill this post with a bunch of videos but I promise not to. Just go to YouTube & do a search for Anita Renfroe. She has a funny one on there called "Don't Breathe" that is a parody of Faith Hill's "Breathe" song done complete with a long blond wig. And a really funny one called "Think Before You Eat" that is a take off of Carrie Underwood's song "Before He Cheats." Hilarious!! I have one more plug to make - I stumbled over Total Momsense 2 at YouTube. All of you with real little ones will want to check it out - there are even subtitles! :-)

Okay - the next "comedy" speaker was Nicole Johnson. She is also very, very funny but always slips in a great message in there as well. A while ago there was an e-mail circulating about this mom who realized she was "invisible" to her family - that was a skit by Nicole.

My sister had some videos & had shared them about a year before we even decided to go to Women of Faith. She did two really awesome skits. One was called "The Case of the Missing Mind."

If any of you moms out there can relate, you know how you forget stuff - why you went in to a room, when you last did laundry, you know that sort of stuff. This skit was all based on that. It was really pretty funny.

I think my favorite skit was the one she did on "Fire" & it was about the damage angry words can do. I found both Anita & Nicole funny & thought provoking all at the same time.

Women of Faith - Part 1A

I know - not a very creative title. When I did the previous blog post on Women of Faith & the singers - Natalie Grant & Nicole C. Mullen - I didn't have any of the photos my sister took with me to post. This shows you just how close we were - although she has a good zoom on her digital camera.

Again, I love watching live performances & almost always like the artist that much better having seen them sing live.


The host made a comment about how Natalie almost didn't make it as she had been very ill. I'm so glad she did. She was fantastic to watch.

Remember the video I shared earlier (click here to see it & to read my more detailed post about the singers) about the song "One Touch?" Here are a few photos my sister took while Nicole C. Mullen performed it. The girls on stage are a traveling group of young people that she mentors & takes on the road with her. They sang a bit & did a lot of dancing & such. They were also very good. This song & its performance so touched my heart.

PS: I forgot to mention that Sandi Patty was also here!!!! She was just wonderful as well. Not only did she sing but she talked about how to give you whole life & all of its aspects over to Christ. I didn't seem to have any photos to remind me to post! I'm sure they are there but I think they are on the film ones my sister took so I have no digital images.

Women of Faith - Part 1

A week ago today I was at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston thoroughly enjoying myself at the Women of Faith Pre-conference. WOW! I have never been before but I am already planning to go next year - all the way down to Connecticut as that will the closest one to us in 2009.

I'm going to spread the posts out over a few days simply because I have so much to share. I did not get a lot of photos with my little point & shoot Nikon & I'm waiting to get the good ones from my sister who has a much nicer Kodak digital. Photos will follow!

The pre-conference had the Women of Faith Worship Team singing praise & worship songs. I think that was my favorite part of the whole weekend - the music. The four women who led the singing - The Women of Faith Singers - were just fabulous. It really set the tone for my heart for the weekend.

In addition we also had Natalie Grant there. Amazing. She is just fantastic in person. I don't think I have ever heard a voice like hers - especially LIVE!


We raised such a ruckus after her last song she came back for an encore. She sang "His Eye is on the Sparrow" acapella. Chills. It was so ... well, words fail. It was THAT good!

Nicole C. Mullen was also there. I have to admit that most of what I had seen from her in the past didn't make a huge impression on me. She has a good voice, but I found it hard to understand her singing songs I didn't know & even while talking. Probably just a mike issue.

Then she came out & talked about the woman in the Bible who had the issue of blood for so many years & how she just knew if she touched Jesus' robe she would be healed. Just touched it. Nicole travels with a team of kids she mentors & four of the girls came on stage while she sang One Touch. I just found the video on YouTube (below) & I cried all over again. It was SO powerful to watch this played out on stage. The four girls had black sweatshirts on with the words "Shame" and "Afraid" such as in the video. Then they took them off once they had touched & been healed & all had white on & were dancing. So powerful. Still brings me to tears to think of it. We serve such an amazing God.



I am so glad I went to Women of Faith. I'll be talking about the speakers later as well as the comedy and skits (so good!!!) plus just spending the weekend in Boston. It made me appreciate home all the more.