Friday, 14 September 2007

My trip to NZ just happened to coincide with the Sistas Conference in Auckland that Rachel had planned to go to! Sistas is a Christian Conference for women that is held once or twice a year. I was excited to go as I hadn't been to something so huge since I left NZ at 22. It was great to be able to worship together with so many women and sing along to really good music! Maree De Jong leads it and some of the speakers included Bobbie Houston, Darlene Zschech from Hillsong in Australia, and Deborah Cobrae, Lisa Bevere from the States. It was refreshing to hear their testimonies. (My favourite was Deborah). Rachel signed up for the whole 3 day conference, but I just joined for one day. I must admit it was hard to keep my concentration ALL day! I would have preferred a lot more worship and less jabber personally, just to break it up. If you cut out all the 'girly' talk (or, 'women rave') you could have cut the speaking time by 3 hours (sad really!) but the whole atmosphere reminded me of the passion I used to have in my youth for God, so it was nice to experience that again, and see the next generation enjoy it too. After the evening meeting there was a 'Princess Party' in the tent outside where Rach and I went and boogied for a little while, but I was the party pooper as I had to leave the country early the next morning...boo hoo...

Rachel and Debbie

Bobbie Houston from Hillsong