The Shepherd's Conference 2011 and Rummy-O with friends

The Shepherds Conference 2011 was such a blessing to be involved with! There were lots of late nights, but it was sooo encouraging to witness the +-750 volunteers serving the +-3500 pastors who came in from all around the world!

I volunteered and was placed with Izak and some other GBI staff in the Shipping Department. Each pastor was given 14 giveaway books at the conference, plus a $50 gift voucher to spend at any of the bookstores or shops on the campus. The Shipping department was available to ship those back to them. Then, there were publishers set up on the campus plus lots of conference specials on books and even a 'Shepherds Shoppe' that had t-shirts, travel mugs and other souvenirs for the pastors to buy.

Here is the entrance to our Shipping department:

 Here are the friendly GBI'ers:

 Here are many volunteers working while a session is on:

 Here tables are set up for lunchtime in what is usually the parking lot:

 Here are some pics of places on the campus that has been set up especially for the conference:

 Someone said that this is like 'Disneyland' for pastors! It really is so fun to see these men that work hard pouring out their lives for others all year and then they come here and are served. There is a never ending supply of cold drinks, food, books... and even haircuts! Here is the little barber station that is set up during the conference:

 Here are a few more of the campus:

 They even set up lounges for the specific countries represented! There is a Russian lounge for example so that Russian pastors can meet one another and enjoy food that is more what they are used to enjoying culturally!

 Anyway... Back to the shipping department... Here you see a sign leading to our little room:

 Here are some pastors sending off books... If you look towards the back of the room you can see blue bins stacked up on the shelves. Well, they could have bins allocated for their books and add to their individual bin during the conference and then we would organize to ship the contents for them at the end of the conference.

 Here I am holding the 'punch', which was what would be done to their conference cards upon signing up for shipping: (Whoooaa! It really was quite difficult to do at first and then Izak changed the setting to a smaller hole setting which helped me feel a little 'more capable'!!!)

 We had many 14 hour days and finally, quite late on the Saturday evening, after the conference had come to an end... our lonely little car got to take us home... with sore feet and burning, tired eyes... but joyful hearts!

 Then, just last night, we had a fun get-together with Bryan and Polly... and an evening for... wait for it... Rummy-O! (Known as Rummycub back home!)

Here are the serious players:

Check the intensity and concentration!

 And your friendly South Africans:

 Thanks for reading our blog! We have had some very heavy rains and I took some pics to show you the Californian roads which are now rivers! Quite frightening! I can see why so many people have such big vehicles now! I will post the pics soon...


Keep in touch and please keep the comments coming!