Batticaloa Conference...

Well the Batticaloa conference is now finished, and it was a great time of fellowship and learning with around 110 delegates from around the region. This conference also included about a dozen leaders from the Ampara district who came along in order to receive training for the Ampara Children's camp which will be held on Friday and Saturday of this week. The conference program was almost the same as the Trinco conference, with the addition of some workshops for the Ampara leaders. Batticaloa was greatly affected by the Tsunami in 2004/05 and there is still a lot of rebuilding going on of roads and infrastructure.

We were graciously hosted by the pastors of the church where the conference was being held - Pastor Roshan and Sister Michelle, and they also allowed us to use the church every evening as a place to eat our dinner - which we bought in the local takeaway.

The first day of the conference, the Kidsreach local team found themselves hosting a children's program along side the conference program for a number of kids who turned up thinking the conference was a children's event. Despite the very short notice, they did a great job and the kids had lots of fun.

As with Trincomalee, the Games session run by Hilary was a great success and we have decided to incorporate some more games throughout the program because they are so effective at breaking down the barriers that can keep the delegates from getting involved and mixing with one another. The keynote session that Pastor David gave on how to minister to boys was met with great interest by the almost exclusively female delegates, and really highlighted the problem of being relevant to boys in our programs as it has a flow on effect for the number of men who are attending and ministering in church as adults.

All in all the conference was a success. Our initial concerns about having enough interpreters, given the primarily Tamil speaking attendance was put to rest by having a number of delegates who were able to step in and they all did a great job.

Tomorrow is a rest day - a visit to another famous beach here on the east coast, then we are travelling to the children's camp the following day...Pastor David and Asela will be splitting off to go to Colombo for a 2 day seminar for Compassion workers and Escape workers on counselling children. Thanks for your comments ... we are reading them and it's good to know that people are following us as we move around. I have added photo's to the earlier posts so go back and see some of what I have been writing about. For now...goodnight and God bless.