Time of Refreshing Conference

It's been a busy few weeks. Went to my annual Time of Refreshing Conference of American Missionaries in Leysin, Switzerland a last week. It is always good to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. For some reason, this year, I paid much closer attention to the long term missionaries that have been serving God and fulfilling their "Call" for 20+ years. There were a number of them.

Some missionaries have been in the field for over 30 years. It is amazing to hear their stories. It should not be a surprise that the same challenges I have faced in 10+ years in the field are re-occurring events they faced years ago. It also seems that they "survived" them and grew stronger in their walk with The Lord because of them. I am not saying that God sent them these challenges. I am saying that their spiritual growth became deeper because of them. Their and my understanding of God's faithfulness grew because of walking through these challenges.

This year's theme was the Gifts of  God. We had a "mass" Birthday Celebration for everyone.

This year we only had one clear day and it was beautiful.

Never too young to worship God.

Take the challenges of the day in stride, walk them out, don't quit and get victory over them. In the long run, the  pain of those challenges will fade but the internal spiritual strength you gain will stay and serve you well in future challenges. Yes, their will be future challenges until we enter heaven.

Blessings from Leysin,

Rev. Lawrence Blakeslee
Missionary to Europe.