New Mexico Conference

New Mexico

A week ago my father and I were just returning from New Mexico, where we had gone for the weekend to a conference along with Steve Breagy, an elder who used to be at our church, and Victor Maxon, a man from our church. Mr. Breagy and my father taught a men's conference on Saturday, and attended church there on Sunday and spent a lot of time talking with people in the area.

 

Snow

Although New Mexico is a little south of us in North Carolina it is much colder, being over 6000 feet high. One of the mornings we woke up to a light dusting of snow on the ground.

 

The Church

Antelope

Mr. Breagy teaching during the Sunday School hour

My father during the panel discussion Sunday afternoon

Sunset

NCFIC Love the Church Conference: Day 1

Last Thursday, we left at 6:30 am to drive to the Love the Church conference put on by NCFIC. We had to get there a few hours before the conference started so that Rachel could set up the Reforming to Scripture Book table, and also Joshua and I had to go to a volunteers meeting. The first message was around 5:00 pm. Mr. Brown had each of the keynote speakers come up on stage and give a summary of the messages they were going to preach. There were only a few keynotes the first night. I liked Mr. Phillips's message the first night, which was about the gates of Hades not prevailing against the church of God. Below are a few of the pictures from the conference.

The crowd during one of the breaks between messages

Jacob Burnhardt, one of the NCFIC interns, playing the piano

Mr. Phillips preaching


Two of the recording and duplicating volunteers


Joel Beeke preaching

Father Son Retreat - Day 2

Saturday morning, Daddy got up about at 5:30 (I don't think he actually slept) , I got up at 6:00, and Stephen got up about 6:45. Daddy went to the truck to work on his sermon, and I walked out to watch some of our friends from church fish. About 7:00 they served breakfast, which was french toast and sausage. It was very good! The first message was by Mr. Bradrick entitled "A Young Man's Roadmap for Victory." He spoke on how fathers need to train their sons to fight battles for God. I enjoyed it. After a short break, Mr. Brown gave another message on how sons should relate to girls in the church. Next Mr. Dohm spoke next on purity. These were all the messages for the morning. Here are some pictures:

Mr. Bradrick

Some people from our church listening

Mr. Dohm



Mr. Breagy and his son Samuel

Next we ate lunch, which was sloppy joes and potato chips. After we ate lunch, there was a time for the fathers and sons to be together and learn more about each other.

At 2:30, the games started! We were on the blue team. The first game was tug-a-war. It was the green team vs. the red team. It was really close, and each team won once. Then for some reason they decided to send us off the do different games, and then come back and finish the tug-a-war. This year we did "Highland" games, because we went to some in Scotland with Mr. Brown. First we did the tabor toss, and then we tried to throw a small rock from Iona, Scotland.

Me throwing the rock

After the Highland games, we finished the tug-a-war (which our team lost at) and did a canoe race, and another game where you had to catch water balloons in a tarp. It was a lot of fun, even though our team was not the best. After the games there was a little free time, in which Stephen and I went out in the canoes with a lot of other boys (and men) and tried to tip each other over.

I am the one on the left with the grey shirt on

After the tug-a-war

We had hamburgers for dinner, and after dinner Daddy gave a message on the spiritual, wisdom, and material inheritances that fathers should pass on to their children. It was a good message. After Daddy's message, we had ice-cream, and we went home late at night. I really enjoyed this father son retreat.





You can read the posts about the father son retreat last year here:
Day 1
Day 2

Father Son Retreat - Day 1

Last weekend, we went to a Father Son Retreat at our church (Hope Baptist Church). It started Friday night, and ended Saturday morning. It was a lot of fun! Stephen and I convinced Daddy to camp, so we left from work and arrived after stopping at Walmart to get a tarp, because the weather forecast that it might rain that night. For dinner there was pizza. After we ate dinner, we set up our tent, with the tarp under it. It wasn't too hard, and so we finished right before the sermons started. The first was by Mr. Brown, and he talked about what fathers and sons can learn from the relationship between God and Jesus. Here is a picture of Mr. Brown:



The next message was a short dialogue between Mr. Brown and Mr. Bradrick on how fathers exasperate their sons, and how sons need to honor their fathers.


After a short testimony by a man from Texas, Mr. Breagy, another elder at our church, gave a message about what we can learn from the story of Daniel. He said that we should resist temptation and not be enticed by the evils of the world around us.

Mr. Breagy

After the messages, we got to have smores, and we finally went to bed at about 11:30. We got in our sleeping bags, and then it started raining very hard. As the water poured down the side of the tent, it got caught under the tent by the tarp, so in a few minutes we were in a puddle of water! I got on the huge air mattress we borrowed from Mammaw (with my wet pillow.) And Stephen moved to the back seat of the truck! We spent the rest of the night trying to sleep!

Beach Trip

This weekend we went to the beach. We had not been for a long time, but Daddy finally took us this week. Mommy, Rachel, Stephen and I drove with Mammaw (our maternal grandmother) to Myrtle Beach Thursday. We arrived there, and went to the ocean, but as soon as we got in, it started thundering, so we went in the lazy river that was there, but then after a little while the security guard said that we had to get out until the storm passed! We went to Walmart, and got some food there. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and then Daddy arrived. That night we started playing a game called Empire Builder. It is a game that is about building railroads, and delivering loads from place to place. It is a lot of fun and requires a lot of thinking. We would play it more, but it takes a long time.

The next day we went swimming in the beach, and then we went in the lazy river again. It was fun. We tried to go as fast as we could, and pass each other.

We went out to eat at a seafood restaurant with Mammaw, and then she went back home.

We went swimming again, and had sandwiches for dinner. That night we played Empire Builder some more, but we were not able to finish. Stephen or Daddy would probably have won.

On Saturday morning we had to leave, so we got up early and swam in the ocean. Here are some pictures.