Beth Jones, International Speaker, Author, & Coach

God is so good. Recently He opened the door for me to be one of the keynote speakers at Doreen Penner‘s women’s conference, Walk Into Your Blessing. This is part 8 of my Canada Trip Blog Series, with my pictures of the conference. You can read Part 7 here.

Canada Trip, Part 8: Pics of Women’s Conference

One word would describe the Walk Into Your Blessing conference: Excellence. Doreen and her team did a tremendous job planning and organizing it, from the moment you walked into the door until the closing prayer and smiling goodbyes.

Below dressed in white and black  is Helen Reimer’s beautiful friend, Sarah, her decorating/designing assistant. I wish I’d had a chance to talk with Sarah longer. I complimented her on her stunning jewelry, telling her that I loved it, and she said with a big smile, “I do, too!” A kindred spirit for jewelry!

About 27 women attended the conference in Mitchell, Manitoba. Manitoba is a province, located in central Canada (provinces are like U.S. states).  Attendees were all ages, races, and denominations. They were so sweet and gave me a warm Canadian welcome.

God gave Doreen the vision for this conference, Walk Into Your Blessing.  We began the conference with prayer and worship.  Doreen’s sister Edna Russell opened in prayer. You could tell immediately from being around Edna that she is a woman of prayer and has a huge heart of love.

Here is a closer-up shot of Edna.

Doreen’s friend Rachel Giesbrecht led worship, starting us off with a beautiful song about God being our Friend. Rachel was such a sweetheart. Below is a picture of Rachel, when she was working on her faith board, a craft activity we did in the afternoon.

There were 3 keynote speakers (Doreen Penner, Karen Wells, and me), and the sessions were spread out through the day.

I spoke at the first session in the morning.

I am a very visual person, so I love using visual aids when I speak.

An audience only retains 10% of what they heard with no visual aids. With visuals like slides, charts, and props, retention rises to 60%.  If a handout is given, the amount of information retained rises to 85%. Use visual aids and handouts when you speak!

(Source: http://www.publicspeakinginternational.com/blog/?Tag=audience%20retention)

Below is the table with different kinds of shoes for my visual aids.

Below is Karen Wells speaking during the second session (mid-morning). She is holding a copy of her book, Even With My Knees Knocking, I Will Follow God’s Call. Karen is awesome and such a loving person with such a passion for Jesus. She told me and Helen some amazing stories of how God used her to lead people to the Lord in foreign countries, even when she couldn’t fluently speak the language! Karen is a gifted communicator and is incredible at marketing! She sold her books all the way driving to Mitchell from B.C., Canada, just by telling people what she does and about her book. I wish she had stayed in Mitchell longer, so I could have talked longer with her. But I’m very excited that she and I will be talking real soon!

Karen will be a special guest on my Women’s Battles Radio Show on Friday, Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. Central Time. We’d love to have you join us!

Doreen Penner spoke at the third session, in the afternoon. I love Doreen. She made me feel so welcome there. She is so sweet and is such an anointed speaker and writer. She also has such a loving heart for God’s daughters. I watched as she sat down by each woman at the conference and just talked with her throughout the day. Doreen is now planning her second women’s conference. I’m so excited for her!

Doreen’s husband Rick did an amazing job with our sound and video set up to record our sessions with lapel mics, and doing much of the behind-the-scenes, manual work. Doreen, Karen, and I told him that he is now officially hired when we go on the road speaking in Canada! 🙂

One of Doreen’s closest friends, Helen Reimer, was the M.C., conference organizer/planner, and decorator. Helen was in her element doing this. It’s her gift from God.  She hosted Karen and me in her beautiful, Italian decor home while we were staying in Manitoba. I will share pics of her house in my next blog. It was incredible.

I LOVED Helen’s outfit at the conference. She has such style!

Here is a pic of me and Helen at the train station just before I left Canada. She is beautiful and precious and I miss her! Karen and I encouraged Helen to start writing her powerful story in a book and she has already started writing it. I can’t wait to read it when it’s ready. She also needs to be out there speaking, because she had an instant anointing for speaking as soon as she took the mic! I wish I could have listened to her for hours! I need to have Helen on my Women’s Battles radio show, too!

For the Walk Into Your Blessing shoe theme, she did an incredible job decorating the tables with cloths, candles, and elegant shoes with flowers inside of them. Below is the beautiful display table at the front of the room, which served as the background for the speakers. I love the high heel, pointy-toed, red boots with the flowers in them!

This was the main display table which Helen and Doreen’s team decorated.

Each table had a different type of shoe. So creative!

I also miss Lynette, who made me feel welcome instantly, helped me personally so much while I was there, and did much of the behind-the-scenes work at the conference. Lynette, I miss you! Give me a holla’ when you get back home to Canada from Louisiana! Lynette has an Esther anointing on her life. God has great things in store for her, amen!

The women enjoyed doing their faith boards. A faith board is like a vision board, only it focuses more on our relationship with God and our faith. Below is a pic of the women picking out the materials for their faith boards.

All you need is white or black poster board, glue or tape, scissors, and magazines with pictures…then tap into your creativity and go!

Each woman’s faith board was as unique as she and her spiritual gifts are.

I loved the women at the conference. They were so sweet. I was able to pray for a couple of the women after the conference, which is one of my favorite things to do when I do live speaking events. Below is a pic of Karen and me with one of the attendees we prayed for, Shannon. She wants to start a Bible study in her home with a couple of women she knows. We encouraged her to do this and prayed for God’s leading for her and His blessing on her.

During my speaking session, I gave away two door prizes with a random drawing: my book, The Hands Of a Woman, to Rachel Giesbrecht, and one free coaching session to Julie Feilberg. I can’t wait to talk with Julie this coming Monday morning! Congrats to the winners!

I loved how Doreen took time with each woman at the conference to welcome and speak to her during the day.

I’m so thankful to God that I had this incredible opportunity to go to Canada, speak, see the awe-inspiring beauty of the Rockies on the train, and meet all these wonderful people!

Stay tuned for more pics from my trip. In my next blog, I’ll share pics of from Dan and Helen Reimer’s beautiful, Italian decor home, where I stayed during my time in Mitchell, Manitoba.

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