Let’s Wrestle Together

I posted this a month or so ago on the Idea Camp blog but I realized that I had never shared it here. I hope you will read and consider joining us September 20 and 21 {my BIRTHDAY} in Austin. It’s going to be a jam packed couple of days with rich conversations around how can we love and care for one another better. Tickets are only $89 and you can register here.

A couple of years ago, I attended Idea Camp: Orphan Care. The conference was held in beautiful but not so convenient Northwest Arkansas. I went in search of answers about the global orphan crisis, an issue that had been heavy on my heart and as a thirty-something single woman I felt unsure of what my response needed to be. In my innocence I thought, “surely some expert could tell me what I need to do.”

But instead I learned something very different. I learned that…

Conferences are not the place to go looking for answers. They are the place to go to encounter new people, to explore new ideas, and to stretch your preconceived notions.

That right there is what I love about Idea Camp. I love that Idea Camp is not built around experts espousing answers, it is built around influencers gathering around a common passion, it is built around being unafraid to admit that we are all still assessing, learning and reengineering, and it is built around the idea that we are all stronger together.

I can’t wait to convene with friends old and new in beautiful and convenient (not to mention tasty) Austin this fall and discuss all things Human Care.

Since I started at Food for the Hungry last year, I have been knee-deep in questions. Questions I imagine some of you are wrestling with too. Questions about how to do development better, questions about how to go hard but not burn-out, questions about how to empower women without devaluing men, and questions about reconciling the goodness of God in a broken and suffering world.

Let’s wrestle together. In September. In Austin. Over Torchy’s Tacos. Amen.

What questions do you have about human care? Where do you think the conversation should begin? What must be talked about?