Winterfest ReCap (2008)

Parents, I will try to write in this post daily (nightly) and keep you informed of what’s happening!  Feel free to respond to the posts with any questions or comments you may have.

• Thursday, 10:00pm:  We arrived safely and without any problems.  We are still waiting on brother James to get here as he drives somewhat slowly.  Just kidding, he kept up!  We have already checked in for Winterfest and got our passes, so tomorrow hopefully we will have good weather.  Rain is being called for but we all know the weathermen are wrong 50-70% of the time so hopefully the rain will hold off.  Our accommodations are pretty nice, we are mostly on the second floor with the exception of 5 rooms that are on the 1st floor.  There is a small river that runs behind our hotel, and I hope to have pictures posted tomorrow sometime of where we are at as well as from the Church before we left.   Don’t forget to Check out the link on the right of the website to watch Winterfest Live!  Maybe you will spot your teen!  Anyhow, that is all for now, God Bless!
• Friday, AM:  I think most people got to sleep around 1:30, I did anyhow.  We were able to drive into Knoxville this morning and purchase reserved tickets so hopefully we won’t have to stand in the rain!  Right now we are at NASCAR speedpark, but unfortunately the rain has put an end to any paint trading with the go-carts, but with the wonders of today’s technology I am posting this as well as yesterdays pictures to the web from the parking lot. Plenty of shops to walk around and look at though.  Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be the same thing so we are trying to figure out what fun indoor activity we can do with 40-something teens!  Got any ideas?  That’s all for now, if the 5 hours of sleep I got last night will allow for me to stay up once we get to the hotel tonight after service I will post again!  Until then, God Bless you all for allowing your kids to come to this wonderful event!
• Sat. 12:53 am:  Well we are done with our first day, and first service of Winterfest.  We are all back at the hotel and winding down from an exciting night.  The Lord was touching our teens tonight.  I would say that at least 1/3 of them went down for the Alter call at the end of the service.  Friday night is pretty much a “warm up” to Saturday where the Lord will surely be blessing us again, and touching the hearts of these great kids.  That’s all for now, sorry about the lack of eloquence but I am BEAT!  I am going to sign off for now and post the pictures from tonight.

• Saturday, 2:00 pm:  Today we came to Gatlinburg to walk around the shops.  Unfortunately the rain started pretty much as soon as we got here and has not stopped since so I assume most are somewhat “water-logged”.  A groups went upto “Ober over Gatlinburg” to ice skate, and some went on the chairlift to the top to be met by some thunder and lightening and the chair lift shutting down.  I believe by way of Cell Phone we found out that they had to be brought back down from the top by vehicles.  More on last night……Our message was about having a “salt covenant” with the Lord.  Each person in attendance was given a small bag full of salt that they could use as a symbol of creating a Covenant with the Lord.  Be sure to ask your teen if they did this and what it is about.  The Salt Covenant is one of the oldest in the World and is symbolic of endurance, preservation and freedom from corruption.  Entering one self into a salt covenant means to bind yourself in the utmost loyalty and truthfulness, even suffering death rather than breaking this covenant.  Any offering that was given to God was to always be sprinkled with salt because of it’s pureness.  Did you know that if you took a fly, yes a fly, and drowned it in water and killed it, that if you then took it out of the water, buried it in salt, that you could bring it back to life!?!!  If that does not speak volumes for the pureness of salt, and how we should be truthful, and unwavering in our relationship and Love for the Lord, then what does?  I (we) am very excited about tonight and what the Lord has in store for us.  Saturday night as I mentioned in my post last night is typically even more spiritual than Friday’s!  I remember last year having to carry people back to the bus because they were so inebriated with the Holy Spirit.  Oh Lord I pray you will do the same this year, ten fold!  Rain down your Spirit and Love as if we were having a flood!  more to come…sometime early Sunday morning!
• Saturday, 11:45pm:  Wow!  What a service.  What a Spirit filled service!  I guarantee you your child was touched tonight by the Holy Spirit.  There was no escaping it.  You know at times, especially with teens, things like pride may get in the way and maybe stop them from an alter call, or stop them from raising their hands in praise.  Ha! Ha! No way was that happening tonight!  I don’t care how stubborn they may have been, they got broke down tonight!  They got free from the chains that were binding them, they got Spirit filled!  All through out the arena, Kids, Youth Pastors, Chaperones, Ushers, Security, Food vendors, Janitors, anyone that was in that building at one point or another, had chill bumps, they cried, they laughed, they spoke in tongues, and most of all they felt the Love of a Loving father who can and did break any and all chains that may have had them binded.  I believe tomorrows service will only be a continuance of tonight’s.  That the Lord will continue to Flood us with his presence and his Love.  And I just pray that once these kids get home, they continue to feel the Lord in their life and that they spread that Love for the Lord throughout their schools, and throughout their communities, and that we will see a revival not only throughout our Church and Youth group but throughout oour entire area.  Praise the Lord!
• PS:  be sure to check out the pictures!!  At some point we will get a movie presentation put together to share with you all!

• Monday- We made it!:  Sorry to get slack yesterday once we arrived home and not post anything but whew!  Was I worn out as was everyone else.  We finally made ithome yesterday from a lomg but Blessed weekend!  Even James made it home!  He took a detour to Spartanburg and we all got a laugh at his expense since if you look up at my first post you can see I said we made it to Tennessee but were still waiting on James to arrive…Well the same was said in closing yesterday when we arrived back home!  We love you James!  Anyhow, it was an amazing weekend!  I personally feel like every year Winterfest only get’s better.  Our kids as well as all of the adults were truely touched, and blessed by the Lord this weekend.  I feel certain that lives were changed forever and would like to close by Praising the Lord for all of his blessings.  I know I am not worthy of one blessing from him, but everyday he let’s me know he loves me in some way or another.  Thank you Jesus!

~ by Jim on March 13, 2008.