I just finished one of the most thoroughly enthralling weekends of my young adult life. Parachute festival is an annual event held on the North Island of New Zealand right outside Hamilton. http://festival.parachutemusic.com/
It attracts upwards of 25,000 people each year with NZ and international musical acts and it was my very first multi day music festival experience. All in all the festival itself was decent, not a lot of bands that I would freak out over, but still a few that got me quite excited to see. I would like to go over the highlights of this amazing weekend by trying to list out a bunch of the INSANE things God did, way beyond watching cool bands play music to 1,000s for 30-45 minutes.
To start off, getting to NZ and participating in the festival was nothing short of a disaster. One of the most difficult preparation times i've had for anything in quite a while, halfway through the madness of trying to sort out the logistics of coming over I started to realize that God must be up to something HUGE. The broad strokes plan was to have a promo stall for YWAM and DTS, meet up with one of our current DTS outreach teams and serve the festival in security on top of running shifts in our promo tent. This kind of stuff normally shouldn't be tricky, but for some reason it was co-measurate with parting the red sea.
As soon as I got to NZ and actually arrived at the festival everything clicked and the ensuing 72+ hours were some of the most insane in my entire life. Below is a list describing some of the main events.
Thursday Night:
- Arrive at mystery creek around 8 pm after hitching multiple rides with multiple groups of people i've never met before from Auckland to Hamilton.
- Hastily set up our stall with close to no supplies like tape or any practical things. (Aesthetically challenged Stevie should NEVER be allowed to be in charge of anything of the sort)
-Attend the volunteers pre festival meeting, over 1000 people in a big room worshipping God sheepishly while Aaron Gillespie provokes us to be passionate about making Jesus public over the weekend.
-12 am find my tent and temporary home for the weekend.
Friday:
- Spend time with Jesus in the morning in our promo stall. Make a conscious decision to start each morning before the stall opens in worship and reading the word out loud, inviting God to have his way with our dinky little stall.
- God speaks to me to not spend any money of food etc. over the weekend and to trust him to provide for me the entire festival
- Half an hour later, I'm already extremely hungry and start pretending that maybe I made up the last bit. Immediately following this the ladies in the stall next door yell out over the wall... "You hungry over there? We have a whole roast chicken if you want it!"
- Meet with the DTS outreach team about how we should go about the weekend. Feel like God said for us to pray with every person that walks into our tent for his purpose and direction for their lives. Must of prayed with over 50 people over the weekend for direct, clear and prophetic words from God for their future. One of the highlights from these times included praying with a young single mom who dreamed of doing DTS and missions in school but got pregnant and then rejected by her church etc. After talking for 30 minutes or so, prayed with her and got a clear scripture from God and visions for her future. She cracked open and shared that God is pushing her now to take her 2 year old daughter this year and do a DTS, hopefully in Australia! Stories like this happened non-stop the entire festival in our stall. SO EPIC!
- Near the end of the first full day I cruise through the village where all the other stalls are set up. Saw some old friends who did dts at newy, notice TWLOHA twloha.com has a stall ( have small talk with some young interns), see that Come and Live also has a stall. http://comeandlive.com/ Rock up and immediately see the guys from Ascend the Hill http://comeandlive.com/artists/ascend-the-hill/ and Showbread http://comeandlive.com/artists/showbread/ praying with the founder Chad Johnson. I Join them in praying for the weekend and meet Chad (one of my heros of late). Make plans to get coffee with him the next day and chat up how YWAM and come and live can grow in relationship. (Check out all of the groups and bands I just mentioned... all LEGIT, just google em)
* Didn't even come close to going hungry once the whole day, completely looked after by random people all day, including multiple COFFEE'S!!!
Saturday:
- Start bright and early with worship and reading the word in our stall.
- Tons of incredible prayer times with both young and old about Gods plan and purposes for them.
- Checked out Jay Lucas' (old YWAM friends) seminar. Have lunch and catch up about life as of late.
- Have a solid connection time with Chad of Come and Live, major time of encouragement and prayer for both YWAM and Come and Live.
- Me and Chad pray with multiple kids for physical healing. Basically any person Chad saw with a crutch, cast, limp or ailment of any kind he would immediately stop and ask if we could pray for them. (For those that know me well, I am smack dab in the middle of a major wrestle in this area). Chads faith inspires me to make trusting God for healings a lot more personal.
- See 'The Chariot' for the first time. BUCKET LIST checked.
- After spending nearly 15 hours either in our stall or hanging with Chad, I attended a late night worship with the Edge/Kingsland http://www.edgekingsland.co.nz/signsoflife/ and Ascend the Hill. EPIC time. Prayed with a young guy named Tom for freedom from sexual sin and addiction. Prayed with a little girl named Faith for her tummy ache and her brother who is stuck in depression. At 12:30 AM I realize that I am a half hour late for my graveyard security shift. See a middle aged woman sheepishly standing outside a big group of people getting prayed for. God tells me to be a little more late and ask her if she's alright. She immediately blurts out that she needs a prophetic word to keep her marriage going. She shares how she's about to divorce her abusive husband. I ask God to speak something into the sitch, he does, Galatians 5:6. I pray it out and she hits the floor (literally). As she both sobs and laughs near hysterically, she begins to release years of pain and heartbreak. I find myself speechless ( for those of you that again know me well, you would know that this ins't super normal for me). I see this woman multiple times throughout the festival and each time she can't even begin to describe the weight thats been lifted off her.
- 12:45 am: Start my 6 hour graveyard security shift. AMAZING time of catching my breath and allowing God to clarify all of the things he's doing.
* Also didn't come close to going hungry once all day.
Sunday:
- Sleep for a little over 2 hours from 6:30- 8:30
- Wake up feeling absolutely WRECKED. Still push through and start morning worshipping and asking God to give me strength to end festival well.
- YWAM Tauranga guys show up and say they can man stall for pretty much the whole day.
- While hanging out with at the Come and Live tent a mom and her extremely handicapped son (caleb) come and ask for prayer. Chad prays with confidence and authority. I hesitate to pray initially but then decided to allow the compassion I was feeling for Caleb to be poured out through prayer for the pain to subside from Caleb's tormented body. Caleb says that the pain went from an 8 to a 4 while we prayed.
- Pass out in a near coma, two hour nap at some point in the afternoon.
- Wake up zombieish and spend some time in our stall, directional prayers for many are prayed. Young Tom comes and hangs out and we pray for his band to be able to go on tour and tell kids about Jesus.
- Run into caleb and his mom ( karen) around 10:30 PM. Caleb tells me that he wasn't telling the truth about the pain going from and 8 to 4 earlier, he said he felt guilty about being honest when we prayed earlier cause he didn't want us to be disappointed. ( theological head spin continues). Karen (mom) tells me that for some reason when I prayed something clicked in her heart. She goes on to tell me that she had another son with the same condition already die and is unwilling to let go of faith that God will touch and heal caleb. ( I barely hold back from sobbing hysterically). She then asks me about my life, tell her I'm with YWAM etc. and am here on holidays. She says "you look tired" I tell her my mental weekend so far. She offers for me to stay at their holiday home in Lake Taupo after the festival. I tell her that I don't have any transport, she says, "Oh, thats alright, my brother is a pilot and has a private plane. I'm gonna make some calls and see if he can fly you down for a few days!!!" ( yeah, not even kidding here, SILLY STUFF!)
- See the Chariot play again, way better then the first time.
* Fed all day, at one point I got pretty hungry and was starting to get a little nervous. At the peak of my hunger one of the come and live guys slipped $20 into my hoodie pocket.
Monday:
- Start last day with worship and the word
- Caleb and Karen mozy on over to our YWAM tent. Spend some time praying and chatting. As she leaves tent she slips me $50 (SO RIDICULOUS!!!)
- Pray with young married couple I had met with the come and live guys. After hanging out off and on all weekend realize that she is an old friends (bunji) little sister.
- Pack up the stall, say goodbye to Jesse and the DTS outreach team.
- An old DTS student from 2004 who was selling stuff at festival comes up and says "you dropped something out of your pocket" Then proceeds to slip $100 in my back pocket.
- Pack up my gear into a little burgundy volvo station wagon belonging to a young married couple I met the first day of the festival. Drive up to their house in Auckland where they offer to put me up until I make the next connection.
* Fed all day. Meat pies to gourmet risotto. Tip top ice cream blows my mind.
Tuesday:
- Surf for the first time in NZ at north Piha beach. HUGE closeouts, lots of paddling and duck diving.
- See much of the Auckland west coast, absolutely blown away by the beauty of Gods creation.
Wednesday:
- Currently sitting in a Queen st. cafe in downtown auckland. Absolutely flabbergasted by the grace of the Almighty God. Crying as I write out caleb's journey. Really confused on how I came out "on top" after praying with him, and that he still is in non stop agonizing pain. Trusting God to get me to Tauranga tomorrow for a Come and Live event and then spend the next 10 days with one of the most important families in my entire life (dawsons). Giving God every burden and hurt and pain from an interesting 2011. Finding myself literally wanting to jump out of my skin for the amazing things he is already doing and wants to do in 2012.
I hope that this little list of some of the more clear highlights from this weekend inspire and encourage you. Through reflecting on all that happened I'm shocked at the simplicity of hearing and obeying God. He truly knows what's best and wants us to experience this kind of freedom ALL THE TIME! I pray that you will begin, or continue, to trust him with every single part of you life. God bless.
