IJM (Alison Moore)

Last Monday and Tuesday the 2009 CSBC Pastors' Conference was held at Magnolia Ave. Baptist Church--right across the street from our lovely school. This conference was important to me for two reasons: One, I received extra credit in my Old Testament Survey class for attending, and I have learned to take advantage of any and every extra credit opportunity. And two, my parents came into town to attend the conference. Extra credit and good ol' family time all at once. These two reasons were incentive enough for me to attend. I wasn't expecting to get anything more out of it. But I did.

The conference had a great turn-out and the speakers were phenomenal. Some of them are familiar since they teach here in the Christian Ministries department at CBU: Dr. Mooney and Professor Jeff Lewis--two favorites. However, the speaker who caught a hold of my heart was Larry Martin. The title of his speech was "The People of God and the Mission of God: Engaged Against Oppression." This speech focused on slavery and sex trafficking and what are we as "Christians" doing to stop this. I would like to clarify that Christians is placed in quotations simply because this is what we call ourselves, but where are the actions to back it up? He told stories of missions to go into foreign countries and save young girls caught up in the sex trafficking trade. He had pictures and names, and suddenly it became real. This really does happen... this really IS happening right now. Larry is part of a project called the International Justice Mission (IJM) which makes these issues known and organizes missions to go and make a difference. There is actually an IJM chapter here on campus where we as college students can get involved. Amy Stumpf is the faculty member in charge of that. I would encourage anyone who's interested and wants to make an impact for Christ to get in contact with her. Her contact information can be found on the CBU website.

Also here is the official website for IJM if you wish to learn more. Please do check it out.

P.S. On a side note, I received a request for a picture of my haircut which I discussed in length in my last blog. So here you have it.

Before the attitude change:

And After: