Grand URbANA Adventure Day Two

I rose at the wonderful hour of six AM after having only five hours of sleep and went down to join Stuart for the continental breakfast provided by the hotel which consisted of donuts, muffins and coffee. Drank two cups of coffee with cream and sugar and joined the rest of our crew as we got on the bus to head over to the Amercas Center in St. Louis where the conference is being held. Nearly passed out in small group bible study (Small group here apparently means several hundred people) and decided that two cups of coffee on an empty stomach is not a good plan and getting breakfast elsewhere that had some protein to it might be a better idea than the sorry excuse for breakfast the hotel offered.
Main session Bible study, led by Ajith Fernando, was very well done. We'll be looking at Ephesians all this week. Yesterday we looked at Eph. 1:15-2:10. Mr. Fernando discussed the necessity for remembering what we were before our salvation. "Without understanding what we were before salvation, we cannot understand salvation." More on this discussion later.
After main session Stuart and I met up for lunch and promptly discovered that the long were horrendously long and it would be better if we wished to make it to our seminars on time to wait until after to get lunch. So we parted ways and went to our different seminars.
I went to a seminar entitled Creating Culture. It was informative, though a lot of repetitive stuff I've already gotten at school. I hope all the seminars aren't like that. The seminars I've chosen today should be interesting.
URBANA served us dinner so we met up after the seminars and s tood in the again horrendously long lines to get our dinners and then went to the main evening session.
Stuart and I managed to get separated from the rest of the group and sat as far back as we could and still see and the music was barely tollerable. I'm trying to keep an open mind about a lot of this, but a lot of it really bothers me. More on this subject after I return.
Fell asleep through the first main speaker though the little I heard was interesting. First evening speaker was a man from Kenya who spoke on the shifting center of Christianity. His main thesis was that the center of Christianity is no longer America, rather it is very quickly becoming Africa. to a large degree I think he's right.
The second speaker was phenomenal. She spoke on the subject of racial reconciliation and the danger of settling for mediocre. Very inspiring speaker, had a lot of charisma, very easy to listen to. Caused me to rethink some things about where I am going.
Stuart and I returned to the hotel where I met up with the rest of the girls in my room we prayed and went to bed. I had difficulty sleeping so I did some journaling for about half an hour before going to bed.
Please continue to pray for good relations within our group. Strength, and especially health as some of us are starting to get sick. Also pray for open minds, and open hearts. I'll try to have another log posted tomorrow. Thank you so much for your prayers and support.