God's Faithfulness and Me Moonlighting as a Florist

This weekend our church had it's biannual college ministry networking conference- Ascent. Since this is UPC's 100th year, and the theme is Celebrating God's Faithfulness, the conference took on that theme as well. The speakers addressed God's faithfulness throughout generation to generation, to us personally, and into the future. I remember sitting in the conference in 2000 as a student. It was a powerful time, as many of us went into full-time ministry from that group. It is a fun reunion to see people who've gone from Seattle to CA, CO, TX, GA, TN and NJ- literally around the country. One of our group of graduates, Jeff, came back and spoke at this conference from Atlanta, where he works now. WHEN did we grow up? I am so used to esteeming elders, it is so weird and cool to be the age of retreat/conference speakers now!

One of the fun ways I could be involved in this conference in my limited capacity is to take a budget and a group of student volunteers and do the floral arrangements for the room where 400 people were eating. It is so much fun. I wish I'd had my camera with me, because everything turned out gorgeous! If I didn't know my vocation already, floral design would be such a fun one- painting with nature, love it! I went crazy at the wholesale florists, buying white peonies, bells of Ireland, hypericum berries, freesia, roses, mums and other stuff... perhaps some day, this will be a side career, since I've done a couple weddings and a couple of conferences already? One of the sweet students I worked with is a sophomore at SPU and asked if I'd come back to WA and do her wedding. I smiled as I left and said, "you bet, but you've only been dating one month, so work on that for a while and I'll come back when you're ready." Gotta love students!