Okay, not 100% women, but 99.98888 percent women all together at the Wachovia Center. While you may be asking yourself – what was held at the Wachovia Center that would interest that many women? – I can guarantee it did not have a ball, hockey puck, or a well known million dollar musician involved! The city of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas were all lucky and fortunate to have the lovely ladies of Women of Faith grace us with their life experiences, motivational and heartfelt words along with their ability to make you laugh until you cried.

 
What or shall I say who are Women of Faith?
 
Women of Faith consists of a group of talented Christian women who travel the US and other parts of the world sharing their life experiences in a way that reflects how all of us, no matter where we are in our life, need to put God first and look to God as our redeemer and our salvation. Now believe me, I am not one to sit at a conference and be lectured to, that is just not my thing… hmm maybe that is why college never worked out so well for me….seriously though, this group of ladies all have a way to pull at your heart strings, making you laugh so hard you think you are going to “pee” yourself and the next moment have you reaching for a tissue because the story that was just told relates to you and your life and that spot inside you that you have been pushing and trying your best to block and not let out suddenly just pops and your emotions just flood your eyes with tears of relief.
 
Sound depressing? Not at all, in fact, I have attended two conferences now and am ready for next September to attend my third! This year the subject reflected on Freedom. All the speakers demonstrated freedom in some form when they presented their material. Either through personal stories, singing, comedy, acting, or a combination of a few, these ladies fill a stadium with 18,000 women all eager and open to hearing and opening their hearts and lives to Jesus. While I am not a Freak of the Lord, I do believe and have my beliefs and am working on my own personal relationship with the Lord, and in attending this conference I only feel closer and more connected with myself and who I would like to become.
 
Friday night my Aunt Diane and my Mom picked me up at work a bit early and we headed down to the Wachovia Center. After getting stuck in a small amount of traffic and a few detours thanks to my skillful navigator, we made it to our hotel. We stayed at the Quality Inn near the airport. With not really spending any amount of time at the hotel, we figured we’d stay there over staying in downtown Philly. After getting settled and refreshed we decided to head to the Wachovia Center and get something quick to eat there before the Kickoff started!
 
I am not going to go into every speaker and what they spoke about for a) this post would go on forever and b) it may not interest you and you’ll stop reading this post, if you haven’t already so with those two points I am only going to write about a few of my favorites and some of the happenings!
 
One of my favorites who happened to be at Women of Faith 2 years ago is Nichole Nordeman. She was back in Philly this year and once again performed and spoke from the heart. Nichole writes all her own music. She plays a keyboard and has a young man, one of her closest friends, who travels with her and plays the guitar and sings backup. Nichole sang a song 2 years ago titled “Brave”, in which she wrote about her son, she performed that again this year. This song still gives me goosebumps! This year she sang a few songs that I absolutely love, one of those titled “Finally Free” which Nichole wrote as the theme song for this years tour theme Amazing Freedom. After performing I wanted to race out to the vendor booths and purchase Nichole’s new cd, which oddly enough I have playing while I write this post!
 
Another favorite in my eyes was Patsy Clairmont. Patsy is in her 60’s maybe… not really sure about the ages of everyone. Anyway, this lady is so full of energy! I am not kidding she just goes and goes and goes and talks and talks and talks the whole time she is on stage. She spoke genuinely from the heart sharing such funny memorable stories of her life traveling – the highs (a mountain top) to the lows (a valley) and all the whimsical happenings and memories she shared with her friends and husband. Non stop laughing the entire time, when Patsy’s took a bow, you just wanted to yell “More Patsy, More Patsy”
 
Anita Renfroe was quite a little comedian. She was not part of the group when I saw them two years ago. This lady literally had the entire arena laughing so hard and so loud, if you weren’t laughing you had to be deaf from all the laughter and couldn’t hear what she was saying!!! Anita took ordinary every day songs and made them into hers. She mostly spoke or shall I say sang about life. Things like husbands, weight, bras, and motherhood. Each song she sang she turned into a comedy routine making your eyes water from laughing so hard! She brought such a comforting, relaxed, feeling to the group, it was great seeing and hearing her perform. I really hope she returns next year!
 
Another unexpected highlight of the conference was seeing and hearing Mandisa from American Idol speak and perform. She has such an incredible voice and hearing all she went through when trying out for American Idol, standing up to Simon, and how she dealt with being spoken about behind her back and just how she became the person she is today, was an amazing experience. The arena really came alive when Mandisa performed some of her songs. She did her own rendition of some Whitney Houston songs, and then sang songs from her newly released album, which I purchased along with the book she has out!
 
A highlight of mine was when I took the step in sponsoring a baby boy from Zambia. This is something I have wanted to do for a couple years. I felt the urge and desire to help a child in need. World Vision is the organization who works with Women of Faith in sponsoring young children in countries where poverty and disease are very high. In fact, each of the women part of Women of Faith is currently sponsoring 4 or 5 children!!!! I was moved and picked “Hope” out of zillions of children in need of a sponsor. Hope is now 2 years old, living in Zambia. He has no brothers or sisters and he lives with his parents. My monthly donation will go towards food, education, vaccines, and his family to supply help to them all. Josh and I will receive a welcome book along with a catalog that if we want we can send Hope and his family a chicken or cow for just a small amount of $19.00. We can also communicate and keep in touch with Hope if we wish. We are to receive a letter from Hope and/or his family within 4 – 6 months, which I am really really anxious for!
 
The one thing that was noticed by us all was the lack of restrooms when you are serving a conference for all women. Talk about lines!!! They even had the mens rooms open which while that is great, men only have 4 stalls!! I managed to get in a line for the mens room and I think I spent more time in that line than I would have in a ladies room line, it was crazy!!! In fact, the arena was just packed all over, but all in all being around a group or Christian women wasn’t so bad, they said excuse me!?!?! Quite a difference from a hockey game with hockey fans 🙂
 
I think I can speak for all three of us when I say we had a truly enjoyable experience and any woman who wants to rejuvenate themselves, laugh until they think it is impossible to laugh anymore, and just have a day and a 1/2 of “Estrogen Only”, I recommend Women of Faith, believe me when I say you will be surprised at how down to earth these women are, every day women like you or I!
 
For more information about Women of Faith please visit: www.womenoffaith.com
 
For more information about World Vision please visit: www.worldvision.com