Monday, June 25, 2005

General Conference got off to a great start with a Monday night service at College Park UB church in Huntington. The service began with a parade of flags, in which every country where the UB church has a presence. It was a whole gob of flags. The countries included those where partial-support missionaries served, so countries like Swaziland and Ukraine were represented.

The Duran brothers, five young guys from one of our Hispanic churches in El Paso, Texas, provided special music. It was superb. They really got people going. We worshiped partly in Spanish, partly in English.

Various officials from national conferences beyond North America participated in the service--Peter Lee from Hong Kong, Joe Bob Amara from Sierra Leone, Francisco Raudales from Honduras, Juan Pavon from Nicaragua, Richard Oliam from Haiti, Guadalupe Velasquez from Mexico, and others.

The service spotlighted the fact that we are an international church, not a white English speaking North American church.

Kyle McQuillen, the director of Missions, was the platform chairman.

Bishop Ray Seilhamer will spoke on "Rediscovering the Great Commission."

A highlight of the evening was the official presentation of the book "Tio Archie," which combines the life story of Archie Cameron and the history of Honduras Conference. Steve Dennie, the author, gave some background about the book and Archie's life (he's been in Honduras 50 years now). Francisco Raudales, the Honduran superintendent, spoke in tribute to Archie, as did former missionary Gary Brooks. Then Steve Dennie gave a copy of "Tio Archie" to Archie on behalf of the church.

As Archie left the platform, he was given a rousing standing ovation.