Hello everyone! I am back home from the Women of Faith conference.

First of all I want to deeply thank everyone who was praying for me this weekend while I was at the conference. You have no idea how important those prayers were!!!

First of all for my health. And secondly, even though you all may not have known it(but God knew),that there was a huge need for prayer covering for safety over all 12,000 women who were attending the conference.

As I mentioned earlier it is a 1/2 mile walk from the motel to the arena one way...going to the arena is walking down hill....Coming back it is uphill. That was the hardest walk I have had to do in quite some time.

The first trip on Friday went as planned and I made it back to the motel, in discomfort, but I made it! That I am proud of and I thanked Jesus over and over. we had a 2 hour break between the day session on Friday and the evening session friday evening.

So with just a 2 hour break I went and walked that 1/2 mile back down the hill to the arena. Mom and I got in and looked at the book tables and bought some books then went to out seats to wait for the event to begin. We noticed that for some reason no one else was Coming in to take their seats on one entire side of the arena. After about 30 mins many of us who were already inside began to realize that something must be wrong or going on in that area as soon yellow caution tape went up over the enterence of one of the 4 portals that lead out to the concourse and extra arena staff began guarding the steps on the entire side. It got to be 7:15pm(was to begin at 7pm) and none of the speakers had entered the arena, none of the 4 cameras and camera men had reset up again, the only people still in the seating area of the arena(not the concourse where the book tables were at) were us who had already gone in there to take our seats. Then the President of Women of Faith and 2 camera men came out and asked everyone who was in the sections right next to the empty section(half of the arena) to please move to the opposite side of the arena and just take any seat open. People began to move over to where we were sitting and as that was going on, Mary, (WOF president) then made the announcement that the Rose Garden arena staff and Portland police asked us to cancel the evening portion of the event for that night and to please calmly exit the building.

Well in the mean time (half way through this) my mom got a call from one of our friends that was still outside the arena in the wind and cold telling us that they were not letting any more people in at all and that the Portland police and bomb squad were now on the scene and a bomb retrieving robot had been put into action and and entire half of the massive Rose Quarter Arena property was roped off in crime tape. and our friend wanted us to go outside, but we knew if they were not letting anyone in no was being let back out until police gave the go ahead.

So anyway back to where we were asked to now leave the building. We found out that 1,200 of us women were already inside and 8,000 were outside stopped from Coming in. We discover that the way we had to walk to get back to our motel was blocked with crime scene tape so we could not go that way. That meant we had to go around to the back of the Rose Garden arena area to get to the stairs that lead to the MAX lite rail tracks and the road that runs behind the Rose Garden and the Memorial collosium(another larger arena) that sits right next to the one we were in.

Now for someone in good health would not panic at that route back to the motel....BUT that route required me to go down 2 flights of stairs to get to the road and sidewalk. It was another 1/2 mile walk ALL up hill just to get to the front of the Rose garden arena, which marked the original 1/2 mile walk up hill back to the motel. So Friday evening I ended up walking 1 mile up hill to get back to the motel......I made it, painfully, joint pain, muscle pain, very difficult to breath....but by the grace of God!!!!!I made it back to the motel safely with my mom.

So mom and I watched the news back at the motel to see what was going on. You all will be happy to hear it ended up NOT being a bomb!!! It was a plastic tube that was attached to the wall inside one of the womens restrooms that did not look like it should be where it was so the police was called and then the bomb squad was called out. They removed it and discovered it was empty so it was a fake or just an unknown empty tube that was suppose to be holding something but was not and was supposed to be there but we may never know the answer to that question.

I am just thankful for the protection from God and the way the staff handled the situation so calmly it was awesome(not the experience LOL) but that we all left with no fear or panic happening. God is soooooo good!!!!!!

So that was Friday LOL

Saturdays all day conference was awesome!!!!!! Nothing went wrong!!!!!!! We were all blessed by the music and speakers!!!!! And we all said a prayer of thanks to God for protecting us and keeping us from harm before we began the event this morning.

I cant wait until next years conference!!!!!! I plan to be at least 120 pounds of my 200 lighter and with me allowing Jesus to walk me through it and showing me how desperately I need to lose it by the events that happened this last Friday I am determined to hold my promise to God this time!