2005 Creation MEGA Conference Brings New Beginnings

The 2005 Creation MEGA conference may be over, but for many who were there, it is just the beginning of a new chapter. For Jettie, a sharp-dressed woman of 73, the end of the conference brings not just a new chapter, but a whole new direction for the book that brought her there.

Two weeks before the conference, Jettie had never even heard of Answers in Genesis. The book she had been working on over the years had just been rejected from a well-known Christian publisher. As it turns out, they supported the Intelligent Design Movement. Her book which explores Genesis and the origin of music was too divisive and narrow in its topic, they told her.

After praying for God's guidance on her book, direction came when her choir director, normally a very reserved person, called to see how her husband was doing after breaking his arm. Jettie was surprised when he asked how her book was coming. She shared that it had been rejected. He then asked if she had ever heard about Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham. She had not.

He told her that AiG was to hold a conference at Liberty University, where she was taking a Hebrew class as part of her research. She immediately went to www.AnswersInGenesis.org and spent hours reading dozens of articles.

She was greatly encouraged by what she found there.

With excitement, Jettie called and spoke with AiG staff. After learning that AiG does not have a full-fledged publishing arm, she was encouraged to come to the conference where she could possibly talk with Ken Ham about her book. With only one week before the start of the conference, Jettie registered for just one day of the five-day event.

But her mind quickly changed after listening to Ken's conference-launching talk. It was about rebuilding the Christian foundation (that has been mercilessly attacked by evolutionary-thinking) in the church, the home, and the heart.

"We must take back our history … creation … chemistry … DNA … astronomy … anthropology … marriage … dinosaurs … biology … genetics … animal kinds … the origin of death … the age of the earth … fossils … physics … people groups, and education," she heard Ken say. (See Modern-Day Philistines.)

That talk completely turned around her thinking. She was not going anywhere-she was staying for as many sessions as she could fit into her schedule. So Jettie "chased" Ken Ham all over the conference that first day, trying to get a few moments with him.

"Ken, your talk was great. But we need to take back music too," she exclaimed after finally catching up with him. Ken was intrigued. He met with her and introduced her to the executive editor of Master Books, a publisher of creationist books and one of the co-sponsors of the conference.

Jettie says that God really got her attention at the conference with the idea that the only way you can start is not with man's wisdom but with God's Word. Before the conference, Jettie says she had never stopped to think that it was even important to consider how long God took to create. (See Could God Really Have Created Everything in Six Days?)

"The conference has completely turned around my thinking about creation. I believe what Genesis tells us but I never had a framework within which I could work and find consistency and truth. Now I do!" Jettie says.

After hearing Dr. Gary Parker’s talk on Creation and the Genetic Code (See Q&A: Genetics) and after spending some time discussing her book with Dr. David DeWitt, Jettie says she has a completely new train of thought.

"This is just the beginning," she exclaimed on the last day of the conference.

While the future of Jettie's book has yet to be revealed, this one thing she is certain. God orchestrated this musician's steps along the way to bring her to this life-changing conference. And when we as Christians start basing all our thinking on the Bible, beginning with Genesis, then we will all be able to "sing" from the same page, working together to take back the real history of the world!