Greetings from the General Conference at Portland,

Saturday was a full day of legislation after the 7 am Jurisdictional meeting, the 8am worship service, and the plenary where all the current reports and announcements were shared, and then the full Young People’s Address was given.   It was a very inspirational message.   By 10 am we were in our legislation areas to finish up petitions by 9:30 pm.   If a petition has not been dealt with by then, it will not be dealt with all, so all the areas try to get ‘their work’ done before that deadline. Local Church finished up about 6 pm. Some petitions will still need to be worked on and approved or defeated by the plenary starting on Monday.

Today is Pentecost Sunday and I attended an African worship service…..for awhile. It was scheduled to last three hours, but I had made arrangements to see some family members in this area, so was able to attend only 90 minutes and the sermon was nowhere near being done.   I had taken into the service head phones for translation, but everything except the music was in English. I so enjoy seeing the African women from a particular area all dressed up in their matching dresses and head coverings! I enjoy the loud interactive African music that gets one on their feet and clapping or dancing.

Today was rainy and tomorrow may also have rain. Some people feel the rain is God’s blessings pouring down.   May it be so in this season of Pentecost!

Ruth Wills