Gabon Field Forum

Every summer we attend a Field Forum. It is like going to family camp. For the past ten years Field Forum has been held in Lambarene, Gabon. This year the FF was held at a Hotel just south of Libreville. My brother Pastor Larry Thorson was asked to be the Speaker and arrived in the country on August 11th, along with Dave Zimmermann who came to work with our Youth during the conference. See my previous blog entry about Larry and Dave's trip to Bongolo Hospital.

August 16th, my Birthday, Larry, Dave and Karen Fitch drove back to Libreville to attend Field Forum. We stopped at the Equator for a photo shoot!

 
Field Forum lasted from late afternoon on Monday through Saturday breakfast. We were lodged at an old, but nice one story Hotel complete with air conditioned, private and semi private rooms, swimming pool, work out room, sand volleyball court and a quality dining room. Wow, did we have a buffet feast on our first night of the conference! Meetings were held each morning and late afternoon in a large, freshly painted, air conditioned conference room. Many of these things are taken for granted in the States. I merely want you to get to picture that we were doing Fine at FF! This hotel even had wireless, at least Part of the time! There was a problem with hot water though. Some of the rooms almost never had hot water. Can't ask for everything, right? Well, we'll see if we chose another hotel or not for next year's conference!

Pastor Larry preached on "Joy" and we were blessed. Several times we broke up into small groups after the messages and had discussions on various topics. At these times the three young people met in a group with Dave Zimmermann.  We also had team building exercises directed by Pastor Scott Wakely, from our team's Pastoral staff at Allegeney Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Field Forum ended on Saturday morning and Larry, Dave, Deborah Walker and I went  to downtown Libreville to show Larry and and Dave the city. They were able to go to the "African Village" which is an open air souvenir market. We went to lunch at a nice cafe that was new to me.

Deborah and I returned to Bongolo on Sunday August 22nd. That was the same day that Larry and Dave flew to the States. Before flying out, Larry was able to preach at two services at a large church in Libreville. It was good that Larry and Dave got to see a small village church the first Sunday in the country and a large city church the second Sunday. It was so much fun having them here!

Now for the others in my family to visit!!! :-)