I'm heading to Urbana for my first time this year. I still can't believe I'm going--I think I'm in denial. Originally, I never thought I'd go, but over the summer, several people challenged me to think about going seriously (in addition to Fencer's suggestion) and I started praying about it. Since then, God really changed my heart. I don't know why He wants me there or what is waiting for me, but I'm sort of heading there as a step of faith. It's a completely un-me thing to do, so I know that I wouldn't be going if it weren't for His hand in all of it. I have little idea what to expect, but I'm looking forward to it (except for the cold!)

The thing about missions is that not all of it has to be overseas. Some of the conferences, tracks, and seminars are about how to be mission minded at home. Come to Urbana with an open mind and just listen to God. He showed me my call while there: to go into ministry with youth. I wasn't expecting that in particular, but that's what God did.

Hey, perhaps we can find a time to meet while there (albeit rather difficult amongst 22,000+ people). There is one thing I would have for expectations: expect God to show up. It's going to be awesome, and I can't wait for the main nightly worship services. That is a true glimpse of what heaven will be like (and it really is just barely a glimpse).

I'm coming up on my 25th anniversary of when I attended Urbana. It was an awesome experience at a very decisive time in my life. Although I did not end up in full-time missions work, I have been missions-minded ever since, and have a heart for the whole world to meet Jesus.

Coming from a secular university, with a pretty small Inter-Varsity group, it was very encouraging and heartening to meet and be surrounded by so many sincere and passionate Christian students from all over the US and Canada. The main speakers (including Billy Graham) were great, the smaller track sessions were great, the books and resources that were made available were great--that week is still impacting my life today.

I'm so looking forward to finding out what God has in store for me at this convention. I'm in a position where I don't know what I want to do as a career and am hopeful that God will give me direction at the conference whether that is in international missions, working missionally in the US, or learning how to be missional in a secular career field. I'd love to meet up sometime at the conference, but I honestly have no idea how to do that. 20,000 is a lot of people. And I have no idea what the schedule is going to look like. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Are you signed up for a particular track? There are four (maybe five, I don't remember) specific tracks dealing with a particular aspect to missions. I am not signed up for one, because none of them point to a direction God is calling me at this point. But what that does is free me up for the near 200 seminars (short 1-2 hours talks throughout the week) that might be more specific. I did go three years ago, so I could give you a heads up on what your schedule would look like.

There's also going to be quite a bit of free time, and we're going to need it to find food. Lunch lines are very rough when 23,000 people invade downtown St. Louis. You gotta know where to look, and finding lunch for less than $10 is also tricky.

If we find a seminar of common interest we can meet there. I also hear they have lounges themed on particular ethnic groups that have food and hang-out areas. I would say though that it would be a bummer if out of this whole NWeb community only two of us are going to Urbana. Enjoy it because it's not just an experience. It's a life-changing, life-altering encounter.

I'm track-less. I have no idea what God has in mind for my future, so I'm very open to what He has to say to me at the conference.

It is a bit sad that only 2 of us are going, but at least there are two of us. I 'm sorry I've been bad about responding to this thread. There's not much time before the conference, but there might still be time to organize a meet up. Or maybe we can organize while were there.

I've been out of town with little internet, so I haven't been on NWeb this past week let alone this thread. I'm leaving to catch my bus in about 20-30 minutes and I'll be arriving in St. Louis around 8-9 tomorrow morning. But I'll have my laptop with me, so as long as my hotel has free internet, I'll be on from time to time. I'm so excited about this. God is good and it's going to be sweet to see what he's doing around the world.

While you are hanging around the mission organization booths, check out the one for International Family Missions. When I have free time, I'll probably be hanging around that one. It's the one I've been involved with for just under 20 years (five years longer than the ones that will be running the booth).

I'd hate to double post, but as I am one of two currently at Urbana, here is an update.

WOW!!!! There are 17,000 students from all over the world here in one location at St. Louis for the 2009 Urbana Convention. Over 300 mission organizations present, including the one I've been involved in near 20 years. The worship has been great, an I feel we are just getting warmed up. I am now in free time, enjoying perusing through the mission booths, the bookstore, and finally getting internet access. ($10 per day at the hotel ). And I have an awesome testimony before the convention offically began.

As many of you know, I am a competitive fencer, but God has also used the sport and me for ministry. At Urbana in 06, God gave me the call to go into full time ministry with youth and confirmed that the next summer. Going into this week, I was praying that God would show me another piece of his vision for me. That may have happened before things even got started this week.

I was killing time after arriving at 8am yesterday (Sunday after leaving at 8am the day before) before the conference began at 7pm last night (today is Monday). I was checking out the mission organization booths and one I can across is Gospel Trick Shot Ministries. The guy that runs it is a very skilled pool (billiards) player and he has a presentation where he does trick shots and has a message that goes with each shot. I checked him out for about an hour and I felt led to tell him about what I do with fencing.

It turns out, he was in Phoenix, doing his thing, and came across a gal (who he can't remember her name right off) that does a fencing ministry based out of Colorado (where I am originally from). And not only that, she is looking for help and specifically another fencer. It also so happens that I have been looking for a sparing partner (because up to now, I have been using teens with little to no experience whatsoever) who has as much zeal for the Lord as they do the sport. I haven't yet come across one who has both like I do. This guy that does the Trick Shots has been praying for her for a while (since April) and he believe I may be the answer to that prayer.

I don't know what God has in store for this, but I have initiate contact to get ahold of this gal and see where God leads from that. If absolutely nothing else comes out of it, we can share ideas that will further boost what God is doing through us. My e-mail was sent an hour and a half ago, so I doubt I will get a response until at least tomorrow, but I am so excited about this. I'm still going to keep my eyes and ears open for what God has in store for me here at Urbana but WOW!!! I can't wait to see what God is going to do through this.

Ah, Urbana. How to describe and testify to what God did this year in St. Louis? Urbana is certainly a life-purpose altering experience. For a girl who grew up in a church where evangelism was suggested but never really stressed as being one of the very important things that Christ calls us to, Urbana would have been a surprising experience. Fortunately, God used my last year and a half in Intervarsity at my university to bring me into contact with people convinced that life with Jesus is the ultimate experience and that it's too good NOT to share. My experience at Urbana was the capitalization of what God had been calling me to over my whole time in college as He gently softened my heart into willing obedience to his call to put aside myself and tell others about the goodness of life with Christ.

The theme of "He Dwelled Among Us" was so simple and obvious, but profound. Jesus moved into our neighborhood. We should go and do likewise. Whether or not I end up overseas, it's my responsibility to minister to my neighborhood. I learned how to do conversational evangelism, how wonderful it can be to live simply, and how to practically combat human trafficking by my every day choices. I feel now as though I have been drinking out of a fire hose, but I plan to rewatch most of the talks online.

Urbana is a wonderful experience and there's nothing more encouraging than watching 17,000 of your peers come together to celebrate and learn about God's goodness and love for the world and how to tell others about it.

I also got to meet Fencer! However brief it was. I'm sorry I had to run Fencer, but I was so glad to get to connect with you. I was worried I wouldn't be able to. I passed International Family Missions a couple times hoping to see someone who could be you. It was very nice of you to wear a fencing T-shirt to help me out. I'm looking forward to hearing how God used Urbana09 in your life.

Urbana certainly is an experience of a lifetime regardless if you go once, twice, or more. Urbana 09 was my second time to the conference; my first being in 06. I will have to say that personally, there wasn't much that stood out in the seminars and the sessions, mostly because the themes were quite similar to the ones from last time: worldwide evangalism. The main theme of "He Dwelled Among us" was neat as we learned how Jesus became one of us to reach us. Many of the speakers focused on how we can go out and serve our neighbors by being one of them. Here's what some of the speakers were saying. We can minister from where we are and go to them. But you can really get to the heart of the matter by living with them, eating thier food, and being among them where they are at.

While I agree with the themes and the ideas, I didn't entirely agree with the way some things were said. Having been in short-term and long-term missions for near 20 years, I know that not everyone is called to simply sell absolutely everything and live on the foreign mission field. That wasn't what the speakers were saying, but I did find how they said it somewhat offensive to those that do short-term mission trips and those that serve but don't directly live with the people. So I wasn't so impressed with the speakers like others were.

I attended two seminars during the week: one on spiritual warfare, the other on sports ministry. The spiritual warfare seminar had 500 people in a room for 250 (every floor space, wall, and doors were filled to the brim, violating every personell fire codes possible). Because I have been studying spiritual warfare for years, there wasn't anything new persay that I didn't already know, but it was an excellent overview of spiritual warfare, explaining all three aspects of it (our battles with the flesh, the world, and the devil). The sports ministry seminar was hosted by the FCA and showed that the fast growing ministry and one of the largest fields is sports ministries (even more than feeding the poor and AIDS help). Both were great, but not anything that really stood out to me or new.

The worship was awesome. We experienced worship from several different parts of the world from the US to Latin America to Kenya, to Egypt, to Native America, and even a little bit of France. So six languages and some of the songs were pretty awesome. We had some sweet worship and everyone poured everything out praising the Lord into the new year.

And finally an update with my post above. I have been in contact with a gal from Sedona Arizona who has a fencing ministry geared towards special needs kids. I got the contact through one of the booths at Urbana and the set-up was a pure God thing. Based on what we have discussed so far, it appears we are perfect fits for what each of us are doing independently. Through this I will have the opportunity to use the sport for ministry, serve youth as my calling is, and even expand beyond what God is doing now. I have already been offered a scholarship to attend this upcomming summer's Coaches College for fencing and I am going to work with my coach this semester to work that direction. I am excited to see where this will lead and even if I don't work with this gal in her ministry, through her, I will get a much clearer glimpse of the vision God has for me.