Day 4 and 5: a conference

On Friday and Saturday nights we slept in a conference centre, it was an adjustment, even after only three days on the road! We're at the OMF Australian National Conference. I'm struck again at how different a "homeside" national conference is to a "fieldside" conference (for example, the one we went to in June last year). 

At a homeside national conference, there are people attending from many different perspectives. We've met retired OMF missionaries, some currently serving with OMF in various countries, and missionaries on home assignment like ourselves. There are staff who run things in Australia for OMF—they look after things related to us like finance and personnel matters, but also who work with new people interested in going overseas to serve with OMF. And this latter bunch of people are also at conference: people learning about OMF and about the need for the gospel in East Asia, either because they're interested in going themselves, or because they are part of the team that supports those who go. That's a complex group of people!

The conference venue was gorgeous. This is the view 
from outside the dining room towards the ocean.

A fieldside conference mostly consists of people sent to serve in one particular country. So the feel is quite different and a fieldside conference can feel much more focused and "family-like". Also, generally, significantly longer and more intense. Fieldside conferences often fulfil a role of refreshment and spiritual nourishment, a time for missionaries to step aside from their ministries for a period, something that is compulsory and also longer (often five days in Japan).

Quite a few people know our faces at this conference, but it tends to be a one-way street and we don't know them, or perhaps we've prayed for them through the prayer material that OMF Australia provides, but we've never met them in person.

In any case, it's been a great time so far of talking mission with others who "get" this crazy lifestyle. When we're in Australia we spend little time with other people who live like we do, so a missionary conference is a place where we get to enjoy fellowship with many likeminded people.

Our location is in Collaroy, which is on the northern coast of Sydney. We can see the Pacific Ocean from our room! It's been lovely to be fed by someone else who also takes care of the dishes! And to enjoy the facilities, including our own private bathroom.

On Sunday, after the (first) conference ended, we drove 45 minutes to park in the backyard of another missionary. We were really unsure how the afternoon would play out. We ended up having a bring-and-share type lunch at our host’s house along with two other missionaries we’d only just met, then some quiet time (we used to call it SQUIRT time). At 4 pm we joined a video call for a couple of hours with our three sons who were hanging out in our empty house in Ipswich! We chatted and played online board games.

Then dinner was a simple leftovers meal heated up in our little kitchen, short walk to buy ice creams, showers, writing here, and then to bed!

Monday is conference number 2! That's for my next post.