Experience Compassion Portland 2014

Every year we have an advocate gathering somewhere in our region. This is a time for advocates to get together, fellowship and learn more about the ministry we are all so passionate about - Compassion International. Two years ago, the gathering was in Seattle and the girls and I went up for the weekend. Last year, it was in Newburg, OR...about an hour from here.

After last year's event, I offered to help plan the next event right here in Portland. A date was picked and we started brainstorming what the event would look like. When I offered to plan the event, I never dreamed it would become a big conference with people flown in from all over.

The event was scheduled for February 7 and 8, but ended up being cancelled due to snow and ice here in Portland. Thankfully, the event was rescheduled and it happened this weekend (Friday and Saturday). Our speaker and guest line-up was different than the original line-up, but it was pretty good.

Unfortunately, only 45 of the 150 people we were expecting showed up. I think there was quite a bit of miscommunication about the rescheduled date. I still thought we had a pretty good event and was honored to be part of it.

Here are some pics....

These two....they were so helpful! We spent a good part of Friday setting up and they worked hard. Then on Friday night and Saturday, they were "personal shoppers" at the Compassion store. I thought they would be bored to death at the conference, but they enjoyed it and helped out in many ways!

Most advocate gatherings or conferences have a Compassion grad who shares his or her story. We were privileged to have Ben Mwangi of Kenya. I had heard his story two years earlier in Seattle, and it was good to see him again.

You've got to take three minutes to watch this video...

Ben Mwangi - A Life Changed from Compassion International on Vimeo.

Because this was an official Experience Compassion conference, we also were privileged to have one of Compassion's music artists share with us. Grant Norsworthy came and besides having a cool Australian accent and singing well, he was an amazing communicator and speaker.

Kevin really enjoyed getting to know him and he even invited Kevin up on stage to teach the audience how to clap correctly!

Here is a beautiful song and video Grant wrote after traveling to Rwanda with Compassion...

After the conference, Grant came to our home for a bit to eat dinner and hang out before he flew home to Nashville. 

At the end of the conference, Rick (our regional manager) honored 6 advocates who have a combined total of 77 years of volunteer advocacy with Compassion. And our personal efforts account for just under 1500 sponsorships over the years. We each received a framed photo, commemorating our years of service. 

And now we get to EXPERIENCE COMPASSION as a family in Thailand later this week!!!!