Missions Conference 2009

This week is Missions Conference at my church. Every year since since I was born, minus the four years I was in college, I have attended Missions Conference. Normally, we have three missionary speakers who rotate throughout the week, sharing different days and nights and with different groups of people. The first Sunday we have a "Missions Parade" in which children from ages 3-12 dress like people from all different countries and then march with flags up the aisles, across the stage, and then down the center aisle while the congregation sings "We've a story to tell to the nations...". For as long as I can remember, my brother and I would always be up late the night before planning on what our costumes would be while begging our mom to help us find things we needed.

Since I now work in children's ministry, this year was no different, except I knew what I was going to wear. Janelle brought me this beautiful gown and matching headscarf to wear from when she lived in the Middle East, except it was actually made in India...but that's not the point. So I was a part of the parade, holding two three year-olds hands and marching down the aisles. Everyone told me how beautiful I looked.

This year is the first year we have had a national pastor with us who is on tour with an American missionary. He is from Burkina Faso and works in a city my dad has visited several times to help build churches. He speaks very little English, so he preaches in French and the radio engineer (the American missionary) translates. When he began speaking on Sunday, he said he was reminded of his country as he saw the women who were dressed in the beautiful Muslim clothing. He was saddened as he thought of his home country and the increasing number of Muslim converts they are seeing each day.

And I can't help but feel the same way. To me, there was nothing beautiful about my appearance on Sunday. That costume is a reminder to me of what I see each day which is everything but beautiful. People have described Islam as a bus and the women as the ones who are always chasing that bus. What they do is never enough, and they spend their whole lives trying to be enough. "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"