This was a great moment. After Forward, I brought Maddie and her friend "backstage" while everyone else was exiting, and it was there that she actually got to meet "Uncle Reggie," as she calls him so affectionately. She loves to hear him speak and was really looking forward to tonight at Forward. It did not disappoint!
Today was a huge, long, and wonderful day filled with ups and downs and craziness and fun and intense worship, free food truck food, Kona ice, Trib Wars and so much more.
Maddie was ready to go early, as were all the other students. She's been wearing her cowboy hat for Rodeo all weekend long. She looks great in it!
Rodeo didn't win, but it was close - her Tribe came in second place tonight, and that was still great. The games were super fun for her to cheer along with.
It was a day to hang out with friends, and eat Kona ice and just sit around and talk while waiting in between sessions. The food trucks were out there again, and Maddie got to eat some hibachi chicken from the truck, adding some hot sauce of course. She and her friends gathered in the shade, hanging out there while waiting.
I was out there too, but my little "all access" wristband got me in and out the doors as I continued to help out, serve food, meet with volunteers, and so on. This section of the day was nice though, as I got to see Maddie and her friends a bit. You can see Nia up there next to Maddie, and I got to see a lot of KidPak volunteers too, even getting them some food truck food too.
Maddie's orange beads were individually put on there by Mom over the last two days or so - Mom put a lot of effort into that, and it looked really fantastic, and of course added to the whole team energy a lot. We stopped by Daniel's booth a few times this weekend, including today, where we got some other items - Maddie got a new ball cap today, one with a little leather map of Georgia on it. She got a sweatshirt, and I got a t-shirt too.
The service tonight was spectacular. The crowds were energized and pumped up during Tribe Wars, where I was doing my announcer thing once more. We had a crazy "Cage of Chaos" game, and the worship was outstanding once more. I got to sit in for a good bit of that, and how incredible it is to see so many youths jumping up and down, excited during worship, hands raised and all singing loudly. Of course, Uncle Reggie did share a message, and it was a story about a parachute that the Maddie was explaining to us later, about being a parachute for someone else. The altars were once again packed, as was the stage, with students coming up for prayer or rededicating their lives.
There was a grand finale of course, and confetti everywhere. Those cannons were so loud you couldn't even hear the music. It was insane! I'm sitting at bottom right, pretty much next to a cannon apparently. How else can you explain the noise? Maddie is down towards the front too, right in the midst of things.
It was a fantastic Forward Conference. Of course, two years ago it was cancelled during the pandemic. And then last year we had it at the Gainesville Campus. But this year we were back in the arena "where it belonged," and it was just the perfect Forward Conference for Maddie to attend as her first one. We had a few hiccups here or there, but the students really enjoyed this free event. There was some confusion with texts, but eventually I got Maddie backstage, and when that happened, it just made Forward Conference a wonderful weekend for her:
Unbeknownst to her, I was working behind the scenes to get a quiet moment backstage for her to meet with Uncle Reggie. I even got a Forward t-shirt and a pen for him to sign it with, which he was happy to to for Maddie.
He's a great guy. He's actually the same guy on stage that he is in person, which you can't say for everyone. He's warm, and he's filled with the love of God. He's passionate about rescuing kids and changing their lives. Maddie was so happy at this moment. Camille was taking pictures of it, as was Pastor Lance, all of us so glad to see Maddie and her friend Lily so happy for this opportunity.
Afterwards, rather than ride the bus, the two girls rode home with me. And despite this meeting above, we still got home a lot earlier than the buses and everyone else. So that was good of course. We have church in the morning, but everyone was so worn out we got to sleep a little earlier tonight (the latest session started at 5pm, so it was an earlier night).
But wow. We all have so much gratitude for what Forward Conference was. Look at Maddie wear her t-shirt from the event, the one freshly signed by Uncle Reggie. She'll wear that tomorrow to church, of course.
This event was free to everyone who could attend. In the end, that was difficult to manage because people were signing up for the event and not coming, so we were overbooking and risking a lot for obvious reasons, the whole time calling and calling people up to see if they were really coming or not, dealing with the waiting list and hoping things would work out. There was great cost to the event, first with using the arena, and then with arranging all the guest musicians and speakers. There were props, confetti cannons, and countless hours of work by staff and volunteers preparing for the event. And so as I sat there during the last worship song, I was asking more of a rhetorical question - was it all worth it? I saw thousands of kids energized by prayer and worship, hundreds at the altar in repentance, and I saw Maddie have a weekend that might be the highlight of her summer. So the answer is obviously yes. Yes, it was all very much worth the cost.
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