January 6, 2024, Letter 2
Saturday, January 6, 2024 by Cindy Sproles

A few things are already changing.

Let me begin with WOW! What happened? I had 22 open slots, and the dam broke loose yesterday. We now only have SIX (6) maybe eight spaces available. I am waiting for confirmation of two, so it's easier to say SIX slots. This thrills me for a couple of reasons. When you sign your name on a contract that commits you to $40K, it's a little scary. But then, GOD! He does what we pray and ask. Our prayer is that God will send those He wants to attend this conference. Wow, He did that yesterday. We went from 22 open spaces to six. I hope this is a prime example to you that God is fully invested in this conference. We offer this work to Him as our ministry, and we fully depend on His provision. We can say God never lets us down.

I have listed the number of open spaces available on the website, and I am asking folks to just pop me an email BEFORE they register to make sure those spaces are still available. The funny thing is, I know they won't. LOL. But I ask to try to prevent overselling. We cannot oversell because of space in our meeting rooms. So, you keep praying for those last six people to register. I know God will answer.

__________________________

Mentoring and Critiques - Most of our mentoring slots are filled. I talked with Terri today, and she is working like a wild woman to make sure everyone gets a mentor who wants one. If you choose a mentor that is filled, trust Terri to place you with a mentor who is equally qualified. Our mentors are full-time editors, managing editors, and published authors (and by that, I mean multi-published), so whomever she talks with you about mentoring will fit the bill perfectly.

In the meantime, read down that list of critiquers and grab one. The time is much shorter with them but I promise you'll get amazing feedback. Don't forget to check out our folks who are doing critiques.

____________________________

The Bob Box

I haven't mentioned the Bob Box very much. So here goes. Since ACWC is a ministry of Christian Devotions Ministries, Eddie and I have always been a firm believer in not only tithing back to great causes but in encouraging our conferees to work with us to give back. You'll meet Bob Hostetler, an amazing writer, speaker, and agent. Bob has two sibling-grandchildren who were diagnosed at a very early age with Cystic Fibrosis. It's enough to have one child with CF, but to have siblings - well, it's double the worry and fear. I also have a dear family member who just hit her mid-20s and was diagnosed in her teens. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and its researchers have, in the last few years, developed some groundbreaking medications that have proven more than successful with Bob's grandchildren and with my sweet Taylor. To give you an example, Taylor averaged 3-5 hospital stays a year until this new medication. She has not been hospitalized in three years and is doing so well on these medications that they have removed the port she has lived with for six years. For this reason, we have chosen the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as our "give it back" cause. When you arrive on the 3rd floor of the Cove, you'll see a box labeled THE BOB BOX. All weekend, that box will be available for you to drop in a contribution. At the end of the weekend, we'll tally the money, and Christian Devotions Ministries will MATCH what is in the box and present that to Bob to add to his CF campaign. The really cool part is that all the funds Bob raises are then sent to his son, who works for a prominent tech company, who then doubles the amount. Last year, we gave Bob $1500, which he then passed to his son, and the company he works for doubled that amount. That $1500 became $3000. And that $3K helped develop the medications that Bob's grands and my niece benefit from daily. I encourage you to prepare ahead of time and plan to give a little something to the Bob Box. We appreciate your giving and this is how we help others.

______________________________

Conference MP3s

We will, hopefully, be recording all our classes this year. This is something else I encourage you to take advantage of at the conference. You can't physically attend every class, but you can purchase the MP3s and download them to your computer. They'll be there year-round for additional teaching. I always get MP3s when I attend a conference. It's my continued education. This is an investment in your yearly learning. The MP3s are $45, and every penny goes into our scholarship fund to help those who want to attend our conference but can't without assistance. You will be able to purchase the MP3s from our bookstore all through the conference. It takes a couple of months to get them ready, and then we'll email you the link to download.

We have a site, acwc.live, where we will post all the MP3s and also all the handouts. We try to be "green," and truth be known; I hate picking up the left-behind handouts from the floor. There'll be more on acwc.live as we get closer to the conference.
FACULTY - send your handouts to Eddie at [email protected].

Finally, I'm adding a disclaimer about typos. When I send out newsletters and blog posts, they are run through software that checks for errors, BUT autocorrect hates me. So, forgive any mistakes and trust that autocorrect loves to embarrass me.

Until next week!

Cindy