The As-Of-Yet Untold Story of Youth Conferance 06

Hey teens. Here is a recounting of the tale of Youth Conferance 06 from my perspective. Hope it's at least interesting to you.

Youth Conferance started a week ago today. In the weeks leading up to that point I had not been excited or overly anticipitory regarding the event that i love so much. This is strange because in past years, i have been so excited for youth conferance in the weeks leading up to it, that i was pretty much willing to wet myself to make it come faster. This year it just came, with no buildup, no excitment, which was making me disappointed because i was aware of the lack of excitment.

Last Friday Morning (which was St. Patricks Day by the by) I woke up and was finally excited. The speaker (Warren Reeve) was speaking in chapel, i had errands to run, The Conferance Center was being set up, delegates would be arriving soon, finally, it was here and so was my excitement.

My excitment soon turned to fatigue as i awaited the arrival of my friends from both North Vancouver and Vermilion. I didn't go into the first rally because i wanted to wait and greet my friends from the aformentioned locations. So i helped man the registration booth, in hopes that i would be able to be there when my friends arrived, and i was. Interestingly enough i had to wait a very long time for both groups to show up, in fact Vermilion was the last group to arrive, and didn't show up until the middle of the first rally. I felt bad for them, because they missed some of the conferance, but hey, what are you gonna do, i was just glad to have them in Calgary safe and sound. Once everyone was settled in, the conferance continued and finished that night around nine pm. The Vermilionairres and I went out for Tim Hortons, and then back to the dorm where they would be hosted by myself and my sister, gender respectivly. We didn't stay up to late, and made our way to bed pretty quick knowing that the morning would come sooner then any of really wanted.

The morning did come, and i met up with a quad of people to head up early and spend time in prayer for the conferance. (in case you didn't know my job was to praym as i was on the prayer sub-committee) We showed up, gathered all the prayer people together and began to share and pray. I was feeling out of sorts, slightly disconnected from the atmosphere of prayer, but i chalked (props to Sarah Chalke) it up to being really tired from the day before. Then the rally came and i couldn't connect in worship, still i chalked it up to ultra fatigue, and i spent most of the rally outside speaking with a friend who had recently and suprisingly been dumped by his woman. He was broken, and I was broken on his behalf, i just felt horrible for him, and i felt fine about skipping out on the rally to spend time talking to him and listening to his hurts and confusions.

The day rolled on, and i didn't have much to do. So, i visited with my former mentor, the impeccable Kyle Keller. We visited, talked about church, life, relationships, and the regular things we talk about when ever we see each other. I spent most of the afternoon wandering, and visiting whenever i found someone worth visiting with.

Before the third rally, it was my job to lead prayer with the worship team and speaker, so i headed backstage and began a time of prayer, during with i felt distracted and even agitated. I was especially agitated by the ruckus being caused by the people in the next room, who were ignorant of the spiritual things going on in the next room. Someone went over and asked them to be quiet, but they continued to be loud and obnoxious, and i went over immeadiatly and lost it on them, i was totally condescending and rude and angry, and that was like the TSN Turning Point for me. I just wanted to go home, i was so mortified with my actions. I was ashamed and frustrated for a number of reasons, and took it out on these people who didn't deserve to be treated the way i treated them. Thankfully, i was able to humble myself enough to go and immeadiatly apologize to the people i was directly rude to, and they were forgiving. This was the ultimate in humiliation for me, not the apologizing, but the act itself, i knew something was wrong with me, and i didn't know how to fix it.

The third rally, and second one of the saturday came and went, with me feeling continually and regularly disconnected from prayer, worship and the community that was created in both. I really can't explain it any more then that, it's like my prayer team was all plugged in to the outlet that was God, who was feeding them electricity and in more human terms the ability to hear from him, and speak to him and worship him, and i felt like someone unplugged me and forgot to plug me back in. I was feeling really strange about it, it was causing me to be depressed and frustrated, and jealous of my teammates who were praying and worshipping and really seeing God at work in thier midst. I left the conferance that night feeling spiritually drained and quite lonely. Sleep came fairly quickly Saturday evening, once again knowing that life and morning would come much sooner then i wanted it to.

Sunday Morning came without a shower. But that was ok, because i had showered the evening before, knowing full well that there would be no hot water if i attempted to do it in the morining. I put my clothes on, and met up with my quad of people again travelling in the Catherine Davis-mobile. We arrived and went right to prayer, ok thats not true, i remember i really had to use the facilities, and i did that before we started praying. The i met up with the team, prayer began and i continued to feel distracted and disconnected, and by this point i had had enough. I just wanted to quit and go home, but insstead i went and found Connie my team leader. I explained to Connie how i was feeling, and the things that were going on with me, she said she had noticed, and then she and another leader prayed aggresivly for me, in the name of Jesus commanding the darkness, the oppression, the evil that was clouding me to leave. I was a little embarresed to be honest, because Connie was so loud that i figured people assumed she was performing an exorcism on me. I denied these thoughts because i knew they were an attempt by the enemy to keep me from experiancing freedom and healing.

After Connie prayed I felt plugged back in. It was a struggle as if, the enemy was trying to pull me back out of the socket, feeding me lies, telling me that i was not forgiven, that i could not talk to God, and that i was evil, and all these things, and i just needed to rebuke these lies and not give them any foothold in my life, which was not easy. But God and I powered through it, and we were able to overcome it, and i plugged back into worship, prayer, and community. Praise God

One of the things that had been on the heart of our prayer councellors and leaders had been God using us and our spiritual gifts to defeat the enemy. I didn't know how i was going to fit into this, people were displaying gifts in the area of vision, prophesy, intersessory prayer and other things, and i just didn't see myself fitting in.

The final rally came, and the fight was on. The first experiance was the deployment of our prayer councellors, but that was delayed by three things. First, there were people giving testimonies in the rally who felt very under attack and we were trying to find them and pray with them, second, our pre-rally prayer time had run late, and third, two of our main leaders were dealing with some personal attacks, but we couldn't wait anymore for them, so i took the rest of our team and got them in place, and the rally began.

The next attack was on our team leader, Connie, who as i came close to her was shaking and crying and was definitly feeling the attack of the enemy. Three of us gathered around and began to rebuke the enemy, taking authority over them in the name of Jesus, it was so intense, because i had the opportunity and neccesity to prayer over Connie the same way she had prayed for me that morning. That situation came under control, but next was the co-ordination of the efforts and spiritual sense of our prayer councellors, which i took it upon myself to take care of. I realized it later, but this was God's way of using my spiritual gift of leadership, to take initiative and organize and co-ordiante the efforts of our prayer councellors. And not to puff myself up, but God lead me, used me, and was able to make his presence and Glory known through how he worked in me and through our team as we all made ourselves available to be used by him for his glory.

God took the victory. All Praise is Due Him.

After the rally, things settled down for about five minutes until the pizza party, and then things went wild again, but not in the spiritual way, more the goofy having fun way. The Vermilionairres and I returned back to the dorm, we hung out for a bit and then hit the sack.

In the morning, they loaded up and went home, although, thier loading up was not complete as Kyle left some personal items at my home. I went to a meeting at 10:30 am, was home by 11:11am, and then slept until 5pm. It was quite the weekend.

Props to you if you actually managed to read this entire post.