South Texas Campmeeting

After attending Sis. Barbara Ouellette's homegoing service in Wichita Falls on Tuesday, we visited with family and friends for a little while then headed to San Antonio. We arrived in San Antonio around 2am on Wednesday morning! Karla and I had meetings at 9am that morning. She met with the setup crew for the auditorium (sound and media) and I met with the Home Missions committee to plan for 2007-08. Karla picked Karen Harding up at the airport around noon and enjoyed spending time with her. She was the guest soloist for the whole Campmeeting.

Being the music coordinator means you have to be at all services and in on the planning, as well as the operation of the services. The location that they hold the services in, the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium, has a lot of neat possibilities - like using a scrim with projected lights and pictures in the background, raising the scrim at the start of the song to reveal the choir that is assembled behind it, lighting effects during the songs, etc. You have to plan all of that and communicate through closed circuit headsets during service to direct it. We have already had a meeting with the Campmeeting coordinator and sound company about next year and how things could be better. In other words, we do not really get a whole lot out of the services! We did get to hear one message by Bro. Johnny Godair and one by Bro. Larry Booker.

The board decided during their meeting on Tuesday to combine District Conference and Campmeeting into one week for next year, which will actually reduce the workload for us. We will only have to coordinate this one week. It will be called the South Texas Revival Conference. Sounds like it will cut expenses for everyone.

We enjoyed eating with the Stephen's family and Phylicia from our church on Thursday afternoon on the Riverwalk. We had a great time together. We walked about 8 blocks from our hotel and as we were walking back on the downtown streets, a downpour started and there was no where to go!! There were no awnings - NOTHING! We tried getting under a few bushes, but they were not stopping the rain. WE WERE SOAKED and Karla's hair was flat against her head. We finally came across a small office to step into. It just so happened to be B&W Finance, where I did some work for Kenny Prince a few months ago! They gave me a number to call a cab and we were able to get back to our hotel. We were just in time to meet the District officials coming back from lunch! Sis. Bernard snapped this picture of us after Karla poofed her hair back up. It was great!? I don't know if my suit or her white skirt will survive, but we will see.

This year was the 5th birthday of the district, so they had a party! Bro. and Sis. Guidroz did an awesome job putting this party together and everyone had a great time. Karla enjoyed seeing an old friend, Dora Hammer (pictured below). In fact, we ended up eating dinner with her family and Karen Harding on the Riverwalk after the party Friday night. Cameron and Chad enjoyed spending most of the week with their friends while we worked and entertained!

We returned home on Saturday. It was a 70 mile trip which was quite different than our normal trip to Lufkin! We had a great service on Sunday with 9 brand-new guests. Four of them were on vacation and stopped for service ("trinitarian holiness" saints—interestingly enough!) The other five are a family who are looking for a church home and said they would return this next week. They have a 17 year old daughter and 16 year old son, as well as some grown children. God is continuing to move and we are thankful.