This weekend we took 7 of our youth to the Battle Cry youth conference in San Francisco. It was put on by Ron Luce and Teen Mania and was basically what they used to call Aquire the Fire. Check out their site here.
On the way up, we saw some emergency vehicles on the other side of the highway. There was debris in the road and something covered up with a tarp. Chris was joking with the kids and he said, “Hey guys, look! There’s a body!” As we looked closer, we realized it really was a body! We saw CSI’s picking stuff off the shoulder and putting it in evidence bags, just like they do on the show. We love watching CSI on TV, but seeing it in real life is a little different. It was kind of unsettling.
When we got to San Francisco, it was starting to rain a little. The conference was at the Giant’s stadium. Our seating area was supposed to be covered, but it really wasn’t. After getting sprinkled on a little and feeling very cold, we found some covered seating. We were still cold, but not wet! Throughout the night the rain got worse. Most of the people there were soaked!
One of the coolest parts of the conference was that Delirious? did all of the worship! They definitely did a great job. When they did the song Paint The Town Red it was powerful to think of that going into the atmosphere of San Francisco, since it’s all about spreading the blood of Jesus all over a city!
Chris and I were also excited because we got to hear TobyMac! Both of our children have been to a TobyMac concert while they were in the womb, so hip-hop will definitely be in their blood! DJ Maj was with him, and we like him a lot too, so it was pretty fun.
I think the kids really liked the conference, but I wished it had been a little more Holy Ghost! They can only do so much when they have a whole stadium full of people, but I really like conferences where the kids can get refreshed. This summer we plan to take our youth to the Jesus Culture conference up in Redding, so that will probably be much more Holy Ghost. Still, I think a lot of good stuff happened and the kids were really challenged to reach their world!
On Saturday, it didn’t rain much, so that was good, but it was still really cold. When it got dark, it was too cold for me to handle. A couple of my girls and I stayed inside in the lounge (we had the swanky seating) and talked about life and God. We had a lot of fun together, so I didn’t mind not being able to stand the cold.
I felt pretty good the whole trip, which was a huge blessing. But today it all hit me! I think because my body was so tired, it just couldn’t handle the baby sickness on top of everything. I ended up leaving church early and sleeping all day, but I’m still really sick to my stomach tonight. Yuck!
