Life with the Bates: Beyond Blessed

WOW!! Where do I start?!?! Beyond blessed is truly how I'm feeling right now. The last couple of days, Nick and I have had the pleasure of staying at The Ritz-Carlton @ Lake Oconee, for the Pastor and Pastor's Wife Conference. Our stay was surely past your 5 star rating and truly is the 5 diamond resort it says it is. It's simply breath taking.

Located 75 miles away from Atlanta, Georgia, The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation provides the perfect setting in Georgia

The Ritz-Carlton-Lake Oconee

Timothy-Barnabas is who hosted the conference with Pastor Johnny Hunt and Mrs. Janet Hunt.

We worshiped with 135 other Pastors and 127 wives. AMAZING.

Mrs. Janet, Pastor. Johnny, Nick, & myself @ Lunch @ The Ritz-Carlton

At times we were separated for the "Ladies Only" section, while our husbands stayed with Pastor Johnny. I can't speak much on their time but I can on my time (maybe I can get Nick to write on his time). I'll save you all the details of the whole event. I'm beyond blessed, my heart is so full from spend time with lots of beautiful and amazing Pastor's wives.

I will share with you one pretty amazing detail of our event, which took place Wednesday evening. Let me give you a bit of background. We had dinner on the ground in the Bistro just the two of us. Then we found some people from our association while there and make brief contact with them. After enjoying our dinner we got freshened up and went to Wednesday night program. After the amazing program by Harris III, Master Illusionist, we just were walking around.

While walking around, a sweet lady said "I love your scarf", I said "Thanks", we stopped to just chat for a moment noticing that they were from Fayettville, NC (not far from the seminary). The guys started talking about going to school at SEBTS and the years they were there, we girls talked about scarves and other girlie things. We all instantly hit it off. We decided we would go down by the fire-pit for s'mores still talking about lots of different things, followed by going back into the lobby sitting by the fireplace-sharing stories of our children. After hrs of talking we called it a night, not before finding each other on facebook though. We all pretty much spent the rest of our time together, enjoying our conferences session together, lunch, dinner, worship, followed by another evening of free time, chatting late AGAIN!! And doing it all over again Friday thru lunch.

What a precious couple, who are our ages, walking the same path we are, trying to balance life and ministry, trying to leads God's people, LOVE God's people, and win Souls for HIM. Simply amazing how God works things out. We pray that this is just the beginning of a awesome friendship. Who would have thought a simple comment about a Chevron Scarf would have started the whole thing off.