Basically, what MCE means, is a gathering of the Covenant missionaries who are just getting to the states for home assignment/furlough/itineration – whatever sounds right to you. It is a re-entry seminar designed to bring Covenant missionaries from all over the world, from all types of life, together. The first week and then some of August we attended MCE 2015. We were given time, space, and teaching for the first two days to just center down and breathe deep, deep into the Lord’s love and care for each of us. We stayed at the Loyola Eco campus and retreat center in Woodstock, IL. Curt Peterson, our exec for Cov World Mission, shared with us one last time before he retires at the end of the month. Martie Peterson and Millie Lungren gave us choices and the supplies to choose how we might like to worship during our free afternoon. Oh how sweet it was to play with sketching and coloring! It is interesting how God gifts us with different talents and how we might be still and draw near even by filling space on a paper in with color! Roy was thrilled to be able to help weed in the campus’ humongous veggie gardens. Nothing better for my guy than to be useful and at the same time have the joy of playing in the dirt!!
Then followed a whirlwind of info, from learning about millenials to hearing reports from each of our colleagues about their ministries and what each one is looking forward to in the future, near and far. We had discussions and activities to bring home realities – in the photo below, we’re picking up the torn up papers with our best loved people and things written on them. Our group leader for that session wanted us to be more aware of how losing feels, I guess we’ve lost a thing or two over the past year or more. There were so many that carved time out of very busy schedules to come and teach, and we took notes and came away with a book list that will take us 40 years to read!!!
We had great fellowship, with new friends and old, laughing, learning, praying, and maybe even crying a little. Thank you Covenant World Mission, for putting this all together.
