Faithful God!!!

The lead up to "5 de Julio" had been going for about 6 weeks with lots and lots to get organised! The aim of the event was to reach young people who don't know Jesus personally with His love and His message of hope. We also worked really hard as a leadership team to involve the young people of Horizonte in the process and see them grow throughout all the planning and preparation. I was in charge of organising publicity and live music for the event.

On Friday night, the 4th of July, we had a band rehearsal to prepare for the event. We played from just after 6:30pm until 11pm and rehearsed about 16 songs! Afterwards, I was stuffed! I was already starting to get a cold and my head felt awful! I wondered at that point how I was going to get through the day on Saturday with all that I had to do to help out. There were loose ends that had to be tied up and apart from that, I didn't want to just be there, I wanted to be there serving at 110% and chatting with young people! Also, the weather forecast didn't look too promising and most of the activities were planned for outside. In desperation, I prayed and also sent out an email to my friends to pray for me and the event. And guess what!? God answers prayer!

I woke up on Saturday morning, still feeling tired and a little bit under the weather, but got going and felt even better. I arrived at the church just after 10am and we were also supposed to have a rehearsal for music on Sunday morning (which I just didn't know how I was going to fit in doing that too!). Fortunately, not everyone was there so I started cleaning up the area ready for the band and getting the sound system ready. I then popped back in and we rehearsed a couple of songs and then went on with what we had to do. Meanwhile, there were thick clouds covering the heat of the sun trying to poke through...

We lifted up all the sound gear to the top of the Ark (yes, it was a Noah's Ark) via the ladder and I kept saying that I've got faith that it's not going to rain! Even so, we put some garbage bags and tarps up there just in case.

The loose ends started to tie up when some others on the team were able to help out getting some things printed and the event started!! The young people started to arrive and God continued to do His stuff!



Here are some photos of the event, including some of our final rehearsal.
The event included a rock climbing wall, grafiti competition, the Global Grounds cafe space (looking very cool I might add!), volleyball and ping pong, videogames, live music and food during the afternoon and a concert and panel discussion in the evening.

Our special guests from 100% were actually filming their TV show with us in the evening (which I didn't know beforehand) which made it both really cool, and a little bit clunky when they had to film a few entrances and exits for the show. The band was really, really funky and the young people got into the songs. Later, the panel worked really well around the theme of "Why?" with the young people submitting some awesome questions and the panel responding really well from a biblical point of view. The guys from 100% and the band Juan were good blokes with a huge heart for Jesus. At the end of the night, the young people were given a chance to respond to God's invitation to new life and forgiveness of their sin. We had quite a number of people respond both to accept Jesus for the first time or to give their WHOLE life to Jesus. We prayed with them and there was a party in heaven!!

Overall, I was really, really tired, but super happy to see what God did with our humble hands, feet, voices, drumsticks, coffee machines, church... etc... to impact young people for His glory! Thanks so much to those who have been praying for the event and the young people - I'm sure this is just the start of what God is doing here amongst the youth of Queretaro!! We still have lots of work to do!