Oh Springtime, Where Art Thou

Last week Rob and I spent 4 lovely days in sunny Orlando, FL where it was in the 80's and was absolutely gorgeous!  We went there with our youth pastor and his wife and met another youth pastor couple that we know and all went to the Youth Pastor's Summit conference.  The conference is put on by Student Leadership University and the first day takes place in the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal Studios (as seen below), then the next day is held at a local church where we have break-out sessions.  Along with the conference we also get free pass to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure parks. 



We had a blast there! It was so lovely and warm and so nice to have a break away from the norm here in VA.  Some of our favorite speakers were there also, like Francis Chan and Ron Luce. 

One of my favorite parts of the conference was the opportunity they gave us to prescreen a new movie by the makers of Fireproof, Facing the Giants, and Flywheel. The new movie is called Courageous. It is about men taking a stand and being godly fathers and the leaders of their families. It was PHENOMENAL! I'm so sad that we have until September for rest of the world to see it.  I have always been skeptical of Christian movies because they are so cheesy and the acting is horrible, but I absolutely LOVE this movie! I HIGHLY recommend it! It has a wonderful balance of quality humor and heavier serious parts.  The message is great and the Gospel is presented more clearly in this movie than in any of their previous movies.  The producer and lead actor in the movie and the pastor of Sherwood Church spoke to us in the conference and spoke to us before and after the prescreening.  It was so interesting to here the "behind the scenes" of how this movie was made, and I was amazed at how they were so determined to be sure that every aspect of the movie was from God, and solely for the purpose of bringing glory to Him, not themselves or the church.  They said that the movie-making process for them takes so much longer than any hollywood movie because they spend so much time in prayer over every single decision.  I really enjoyed hearing about this movie and looooooved the movie itself! I can't wait until September! 

Anyways.... I need to go check my very first ever attempt at banana bread that is currently in the oven! I knew that keeping all those bananas in the freezer would one day result in something positive! :)