Start of the leadership development course….

After multiple airport runs this past weekend, we had finally welcomed the delegates from all around the world,  and LDC got off to a good start this morning with a special breakfast and a very moving time of worshipping the Lord. It was a time when the Holy Spirit was moving among us, already touching lives, speaking words of prophecy and encouragement.

Then we had a creative meditation time, where the delegates moved to different stations around the house and garden, interacting with and responding personally to different aspects of our theme scripture, which this year is taken from John chapter seven.  As in previous years, Stephe has also written a worship song based on this theme, inviting the Holy Spirit to come and overflow in our hearts and lives.
Thank you, by the way, to those of you who've been praying for my health. The coughing has almost stopped now, and the chest pain (tendonitis) caused by the coughing is also beginning to be less painful now. My energy level seems to be back to normal again.

I have to confess that having to stay out of the sun (in order to protect the burned part of my face) can be mildly stressful when so many of our LDC learning activities, meals, breaks, etc, take place outdoors in the Spanish sunshine. I do have a selection of different sun hats now - which means that I can swap mildly stressful for mildly ridiculous. (It's not for nothing that I've never been much of a hat wearer!!) Looking ahead to the summer months, when I was bemoaning the fact that I might not be able to do any swimming, someone suggested that I could get one of these swimming masks that were sometimes worn by women in the 1920s.  This would allow me to trade mildly stressful and mildly ridiculous for mildly terrifying!!! (Please note that this is not me in the photo; it's some lady from the 1920s.)

Thanks for your prayers during this bonding week of the LDC. We'll be moving on later in the week to consider how different leaders have different personalities and giftings. Understanding ourselves, and how God has made us, helps us also to understand others and work in more unity as a team.