Forward Mountain

If you see a group picture of Forward Mountain, odds are, I took it.  I took many, many pictures of groups and individuals on this mountain today.  It's a solid piece of work, actually.  It stood up to a lot of weight, and as everyone was passing by this mountain, it stood up to quite a bit of parkour.  

Daddy is in this picture above, taking a picture with the cell phone of a small group on Forward Mountain.  We took dozens and dozens of pictures on this mountain of all different size groups, sometimes over 50.  Meanwhile, afterwards in the Gwinnett Arena, Forward started in pretty epic fashion, with thousands and thousands of screaming teenagers.

This image below gives you an idea of how many people came to this event.

What's amazing to me is the amount of people that came to this event that didn't attend.  Meaning this:  the volunteers.  I got to meet so many new faces here, all of these people that came to the Gwinnett Arena, but didn't actually go inside the arena to see anything going on with the the service itself.  They were all in the back area, eating and resting during service, or at least taking a break.  But for the most part, they were - up until then - doing all kinds of work in setting things up, guiding folks to seating, greeting with excitement (despite the sunny super hot weather), moving water bottles, directing the flow of people, placing things in seats, working with cameras, and so on.  There were so many volunteers here, and many of them even took time off.  The lady I was talking to during dinner time actually was there on her birthday.  It was just a wonderful picture of the church in action - so many volunteers, and none of them actually there to enjoy the proceedings inside the arena.  Instead, they were there to enjoy serving.

Madison was at home with Mommy today, and there are a few things she did from piano to the chore chart.  But a lot of today was sitting on her computer, talking to friends and playing games.  It'll be that way the next few days - we're just in that season at the church with these insane hours week after week after week.  The hope is for a calmer July, but things don't seem to be slowing down there either.  At least we'll get a short vacation in there somewhere, I think...!