Staff Conference 2013

True Confession time: I did a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad job of taking pictures of people this year. I got so busy with meetings that I wasn't my usual self with the camera. I was also fairly exhausted most of the time, so running around with my camera was the last thing on my mind at the time. But now that it's all over, I'm sad that I didn't do a better job of taking pictures with at least those that I met with.

It was a smaller conference this year. Due to a change in location(normally it's in Poland or Slovakia), very few of our Polish staff came. We had about 120 people, but many were guests. As normal, though, I greatly enjoyed my time there fellowshipping and worshipping with the IM family. Things were a bit different for me this year, as I had more scheduled meetings that left me without much of a chance to see anything of the surrounding area. I began to understand more of the responsibilities of a Staff Care person and the tremendous responsibilities of our leadership. I grew both in my appreciation of and respect for the leadership of IM and their sacrificial service and care for our staff.

Here are a few pictures from the first day when I went into the closest little town and a couple of the ones I managed to take of people:

 

Bran Castle, commonly known as Dracula's Castle. Staff Conference was in the Transylvania region of Romania. Sadly, this is the closest that I made it to the castle.

The gorgeous view that surrounded us

It was such a great surprise to see Danny and Dasha at the conference! Danny is one of our former interns and Dasha is one of the first girls that I discipled in Odessa. They married in 2012 and live in Romania now.

Two of my favorite brothers, former interns, and current colleagues who serve in Poznan and Warsaw, Poland- Amadeusz and Filemon Shaded

The view out my window in Bucharest the morning.

Today I took the train south from Bucharest to Pitesti to spend three days here with one of our younger staff(former intern who went through the Odessa Training Center). He's pretty busy with university classes, which is going to enable me to rest up a bit from the craziness of the last three weeks. Ahhh, so nice. I'll be here through Friday and then will head to a newly arrived intern in the village of Bircii.