Remembering that First Dance

After Forward

This morning we had a great time at KidPak with yet another AI generated song that I wrote the lyrics for.  We had basically the sinner's prayer choreographed with a few characters on stage, plus Death, plus Jesus, who put Death in its place.  Death, where is your sting?

It was a fun thing to do, and these skits are a bit of work at the beginning, but they're easy to do once on stage - you just dance out whatever choreography you have, and no worry about remember lines or having microphone troubles.  It was the perfect sort of skit after an exhausting Forward Conference schedule.  Here are a few pictures Maddie took from this morning:

We had a great morning, and if you look at the photos, yes, that's Maddie's friend Chloe from taekwondo, helping out with worship from the stage.  She did a great job singing, and after that, a great job helping us with the skit too!  

Afterwards, we went outside after service to watch a few baptisms post-Forward.  One of Maddie's friends was getting baptized, and also a girl from a family in Charlotte, North Carolina, who first found out about us from our KidPak online services.  Really, really cool!

Later, we got home, and we were pretty warm.  It's hot outside.  The rain was popping up everywhere though.  Still, we didn't see any at the house - we did, however, see a ginormous rainbow.  It was a full arc of color that was directly in front of us as we were driving down Browns Bridge Road.  It was as if we were about to drive right beneath it.  Maddie and I had gone back to Gainesville to drop off a squirrel and get some ice cream, or at least a slushie.  

It was a good day.  We did some Pirates of the Caribbean after that, and we did a lot of reading from our Discworld book. Sorry Maddie - I didn't realize how much I had read!  Anyway, we said our prayers after that, and got to sleep quickly.  G'night!

FWDCON Day Three

Today was the finale for Forward, and it went really well.  Once again, it was hot outside, but there's plenty of time inside with the air conditioning!  The worship teams were fantastic and the big highlight for Maddie was hearing Uncle Reggie again at the close of everything.  In fact, at one point, the college was throwing out little advertisements from the catwalks of that vast arena - small plush figures attached to parachutes, and they were plus cartoon versions of Uncle Reggie.  Camille was up there in the catwalk area helping toss some down.  Maddie didn't get one from that aerial assault, but she knew her dad probably would get her one - and she was right.  She was happy to get her Reggie keychain afterwards, hooking it up with her other rapidly growing keychain collection.  

We sped over during break to Chick-Fil-A to pick up some lunch, and I got the new pineapple dragonfruit lemonade, which was really refreshing!  And then it was time to head back in for the last session.  It was a really good time for all the students, and just a powerful, impactful conference where there was such a heavy presence and so much worship.  There were so many tears, and so many lives changed.  We heard so many testimonies, and it was just a remarkable, wonderful event.  It is such an important thing to go to.  

At the end of it all, we were pretty tired - all of us.  We got home earlier, dropping Nate off at his place first, and then heading home after that.  The evening rain rains are storming across North Georgia and thundering all about us.  Tonight we watched an episode of "The Chosen" before getting to bed.  We read, we prayed, and then it was time for some sleep!  Here are a few more of my favorite pictures of today's final day of the conference:

FWDCON Day Two

Second Day of the Forward Conference!  It's a long day down here, or in my case, back-and-forth.  We started early picking up Nate and heading down, although rush-hour traffic got the best of us on I-985, so we had to do some driving along Buford Highway.  We got down in time though, and Maddie and Nate were there for the first session.  It was a great time for all the students, and meanwhile I was writing with Camille. We were talking with a lot of volunteers too, meeting new faces and hearing stories and testimonies.  It was encouraging.  Even more encouraging were the stories about KidPak, from grateful parents or students themselves that remembered us as they were growing up.

The break came about noon, and so I took Madde and Nate over to the Mall of Georgia, where they hung out a good while.  They met the other Edge students there, but of course Maddie was hanging out with Nate for the most part, eating and shopping.  They were in a store we all like called Box Lunch, a place for geeks with a lot of fun stuff in it - and that's when Maddie spotted this Spider-man t-shirt.  As she was debating with Nate how much it was and how she was going to be able to buy it if she could borrow some money perhaps from him, that's when a stranger took the shirt from her and walked over to the cashier.  Shocked, Maddie was wondering what was going on - and that's when the stranger revealed that he had a "buy-one, get one half off" discount, and that he was going to do a nice gesture for her:  he was going to buy it for her!  That was very sweet.

During all this, I had actually gone home to see Mom.  We had a meal together, and got to spend some time together before I turned around and drove back to the mall, picking up Maddie and Nate, and then heading back to Forward.  Sure enough, another storm was bearing down on us from the north.  Maddie was in the big crowd that was clamoring to get inside - it was sort of a crazy thing when those doors first opened and kids were pouring through.  Watching from a safe vantage point, Pastor Parker from KidPak in South Carolina turned to me and joked, "This is how Mufasa died."  Maddie and Nate had just gotten inside when a bolt of lightning struck very close by  - it was enough to stop the folks working the metal detectors at the entrance, and suddenly everyone was trapped out there, unable able to get inside.  Fortunately, that storm just stopped and didn't advance upon us any more.  The line started up again, and everyone got inside, safe and sound.  And dry.

We were upstairs with the volunteers for a bit, writing a bit - currently we're finished with page one of day three of Summer Xtreme.  Got a ways to go though!  The arena was full tonight, but Camille, Isaac and I snuck into the area behind this huge curtain, in other words, directly behind the stage.  We got to hear everything, and when the altar service started up, we got to sneak over somewhat and see and join in with the massive crowds of worshippers.  It was a memorable night - an incredible day, with Bethel music, Pastor Franklin and more.  Just your usual Forward Conference, right?   Here's a few of my favorite pictures taken by the staff of this unforgettable experience.

Everyone holding up their "light of the world."

Wilson is the prize for the Tribe Wars, just in case you didn't figure that out.

A lot of themed costuming here for fun!

So many worshippers.

We got home late after that, and pretty tired too.  Everyone got to sleep pretty quickly tonight, after telling stories of our day of course.  Tomorrow we start early again, one more day of the conference!