Daphne was the first to show up for this conference. She was supposed to be a part of for this week. She still had to wait for the other three to show up. She hadn't been waiting very long enough until she saw the door open. She saw the person who walked in just then looked like he was in his forties. He had light brown hair and was nicely dressed, with a suit and tie.
He studied her once he closed the door behind himself.
"Are you here for the conference or are you here for another reason?" he asked Daphne.
"Of course I am involved in this conference. Who are you? I am waiting for three other pastors to show up," Daphne told the man.
"So I heard there were going to be four pastors involved. I don't remember how I was told about this conference. I am Pastor Wayne Larsen from New York," he answered and shook Daphne's hand.
He saw Daphne was a lot younger than himself. She was blonde with blue eyes, wore a purple and white dress with white pants and socks. She did look pretty for this week's conference.
"It's nice to meet you, Wayne. My name is Daphne Blake – Black."
He figured it out Daphne was married because he saw a wedding ring on her finger.
"I know you're married since I just saw that ring."
After Wayne said that to her, she thought he sounded like a good person.
"You look too young for this sort of job, Ms. Daphne. You look like you're in college," Wayne told her.
"I am still in school, but the Lord told me I should be a pastor in a church, so here I am. I'm on my second year and I have a few more years."
"That's cool, Ms. Daphne. It was a real pleasure to meet you."
Daphne could see that Wayne Larsen sounded very polite for his age. And professional, too, which was a good thing. The two of them didn't say much after that. They waited a while longer until Mitchell Sanford and Jose McCall to show up.
Pastor Wayne and Daphne chatted for a while longer until they saw another person walked in. Wayne and Daphne turned to look who just walked into the door. They both guessed he must be a part of this conference. Neither of them were good at judging ages, so they didn't bother with this guy.
He had chestnut hair and hazel eyes.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," Daphne and Wayne returned.
"Are you part of this conference?" Wayne asked.
"Yes, I am. What about you?"
"We are. I am Daphne Blake – Black," Daphne told him.
She let Wayne introduce himself to the guy they just met a minute ago.
"I am Wayne Larsen."
"Jose McCall. It's nice to meet you both," Jose said when he finished introducing himself.
"I don't think we met before," Daphne told Jose.
"I don't think so either. What congregation are you involved in?" Jose asked.
"Baptist," Wayne answered.
"I am foursquare."
"Nazarene," Jose said.
"How long have you been a pastor?" Wayne asked.
"I'd say about almost seven months, so I'm learning," Jose said, and then added, "what about you?"
He was looking in Wayne's direction.
"A year. I just got out," Wayne said.
"So, Wayne, what sort of message are you sharing with your Baptist church?" Daphne asked.
"Right now it's a series about grace. Last week I shared was from Exodus 33:19 and Numbers 6:25. I hope I can get a chance to work on next week's message if I get lucky to get home early, but I did mention to the church family I wouldn't be at the church Sunday."
"Good idea," Daphne said.
"What have you been sharing, Ms. Daphne?" Wayne asked.
"The message was from Genesis chapter one verse one when the Lord first created the heaven and earth."
"I would like to get back to the message. I will pick up again from Psalm 103:8," Wyane told them.
"That's a good message about gracious," Daphne reminded him.
"I know, Ms. Daphne. I'm going to switch back and forth. I could read a few Scriptures from the grace subject and we all can take turns," Wayne said.
"That's not a bad idea," Jose said and he watched as Daphne nodded in agreement.
"How big is your Baptist church?" Jose asked.
"Two services is what John Baptist church has," Wayne answered.
He looked at Daphne another time.
"Ms. Daphne, I have thought to myself that this conference was on how to let our home churches grow, but again I could be wrong."
"It really doesn't look like it to me since my church, the Church of the Messiah is big enough and we're still growing. I'm probably guessing we're just going to share Scriptures with one another."
"Never thought about it," Jose said and Wayne nodded.
"We can read them once we have enough people," Wayne said.
"How about if we do half now and the other half when the others are here?" Jose asked.
Daphne and Wayne both liked the idea.
"We can start right now," Daphne said.
"We can start with the three of us," Wayne replied.
"Good idea," Jose agreed.
"Why don't you start, Wayne?"
"I was thinking of letting you go first since you're a woman," Wayne told Daphne.
"He's right. Women are always first," Jose agreed.
"All right. I guess we should stick with your topic, Wayne. Does that make sense?" Daphne asked.
"Yes, Ms. Daphne. It does make sense. I'd like to share some of it to the Church family when I get back from this conference. I'm sure they found a guest speaker so they could listen to that person," Wayne said.
"Okay," Daphne said.
Before they could start, the door opened again. Wayne, Daphne and Jose watched to see who was coming in.
"Hello, everybody," the man said.
"Are you part of this conference?" Jose asked.
"You bet I am," he answered.
"Your name is?" Jose asked.
"Mitchell Sanford," he answered.
So the other three could see this Mitchell character was really young, but Jose guessed Mitchell and Daphne were almost the same again. Again he could be wrong.
Mitchell had gray eyes and chestnut hair. He had the same coloring as Jose did since his hair was also chestnut.
"If I'm Mitchell Sanford, who are all of you?" Mitchell asked.
"Daphne Blake – Black."
"Wayne Larsen."
"Jose McCall."
"Nice meeting you all. Jose, huh? That's Spanish, right? McCall doesn't sound like a Spanish name to me," Mitchell told him.
"Of course McCall isn't Spanish. My folks decided they liked the name, so here I am. I don't mind the name," Jose answered.
When Jose finished talking, all four of them turned to look at the door since it opened.
"Is this the conference room?" a woman asked.
Jose, Wayne, Mitchell and Daphne really didn't pay much attention to what the woman looked like.
"Yes, ma'am," Wayne answered.
"Your conference got cancelled. The other members of this conference had some airplane issues, so they ended up going back home. I do think that would be best for you all here," she said.
"Thank you for telling us some of us have just arrived," Mitchell told her truthfully.
"All right," Daphne said.
"Sorry about that," she added.
"Happens," Wayne said.
The woman shut the door behind her.
"I just thought of something," Jose said.
"What?" everyone asked.
"I understand we just met and got here. Why don't we keep in touch and we'll see what we can do in the future if we meet up again," Jose said.
"Good idea, Jose. I don't know why we didn't think about that earlier? How should we keep in touch? E – mail and facebook or telephone?" Daphne asked.
"Whatever works. I do have a facebook account but I usually am not on social media," Wayne said.
"Neither do any of us," Mitchell agreed.
Then he added, "When I get home, I'll be sure to look all of you on facebook."
"We'll look out for it," Jose told him.
Then all four of them left.
7: Chapter 7