Knitted Jerseys, Sandals, and Purple shirts are all the ingredients you need for an International Anglican Missions Conference.

Bishops, Clergy, Missionaries, Potential Missionaries, churches that send, and churches that receive all made up the eclectic group that attended this years New Wineskins Mission Conference.

There was a lot of excitement and a little initial apprehension at the thought of attending a conference of over 1000 people made up of Anglican missionaries from east and west (and the conferences’ last tweet was 3 years ago!).  All that aside this turned out to be one of the finest weeks Summer and I have been involved in!

There were are 4 moments we would love to share with you all about our time at New Wineskins twenty13 *in no particular order*

1) Meeting (and seeing again) these guys 

Everyone meet the Whitakers! Gregory and Heidi and their three girls are another SAMS missionary family who are moving to Cambodia in July/August. It was such a special time to hang out and get to know them more as they prepare to leave for the field only months after us. Gregory is going to take up the position as the Preist in charge of the english speaking congregation at Church of Christ our Peace Anglican Church. It felt like we were starting our own little SAMS Cambodian family!! We are both super excited to have this amazing family join us in Cambodia. *Please pray for the Whitakers as they raise support and prepare to leave*

2) Spending time with the Dean of Cambodia, Wong Tak Meng

Tak Meng is an Anglican Priest from the Diocese of Singapore and the Dean of Cambodia. We were fortunate to spend a good chunk of time chatting and hearing the vision Tak Meng and other senior members of the Diocese of Singapore have for Cambodia; everything from church planting, youth outreaches, social services, medical missions, teaching English as a foreign language and so much more. We are super excited and honored the be able to participate in this exacting time.

3) SAMS Family Retreat

Before New Wineskins started we we spent 3 days being apart of the 2013 SAMS Family Retreat.  This is something that happens every 3 years, when the SAMS home staff, board, and a large number of SAMS missionaries from Peru, the Dominican Republic, Belize, Cambodia, Brazil, Madagascar, Uganda (and more) gathered together as a family.  It was a great chance to meet and catch up with so many people, and a time of refreshing and teaching. Really just a wonderful time of relaxation, receiving, and  getting to know the wider SAMS family a lot better. The thing that we  walked away with was a sense that even though we are all serving around the world in our own ministries we are still apart of a wider family!!

you can find SAMS on twitter @SAMSUSA1 or www.samsusa.org

Last but not least…

4) New Wineskins twenty13

New Wineskins is an event that happens every 3 years and is reportedly the largest Anglican mission conference in the world.  Over 1,000 missionaries, churches, and international guests gather from all over the world to share, learn, fellowship, and worship God together.  So you can imagine the energy!  We felt encouraged, excited, refreshed, and ready to get back to Cambodia to share God’s love!  What great timing to attend a dynamic mission conference!  Check out their website: http://www.newwineskins.org/