One of the lessons the Lord continues to teach me is that He is a God who gives abundantly. If you read my blog on the Compassion site, you know that I used John 10:10 as an example of how He did that in my life recently.
In true Papa form He blew us away this past weekend. Most of the time, I’m quick to talk about the lessons I’m learning through hard situations. But today I just want to take a moment to celebrate the amazing things the Lord has done in the past couple weeks.
Like with any new project, we’ve been slowly gaining momentum and buzz as people start to hear what this Mobile Experience is about. I’m not going to lie, seeing two big blue trucks with a large tent outside of it can intimidate even the strongest of us. Sometimes people are hesitant to come through.
So this past weekend we had the privilege of being at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. Thousands of leaders gathered for two days of sessions. We were parked right outside the main entrance. We had so many people come through, it was awesome. But where we were blown away was Sunday morning.
Bill Hybels (the senior pastor at Willow) gave a plug for us during the services. We noticed that all of a sudden people started lining up. And they queued up outside the door. And down the sidewalk. And into the parking lot.
From our vantage point inside, all we could see was we were full to the door. One of our staff members came in and explained how far the line went and showed us a picture.
My mouth hit the floor. I quickly exited to see for myself.
My heart leapt. All of these people. They want to experience this.
I walked up and down the line answering questions and thanking people for waiting. They were more than gracious as our wait time extended further than we had ever known.
Eventually I ended back up in the room where the sponsor packets are. They were flying off the shelf! People were drawn to these stories and these kids and the Spirit was moving.
I felt a holiness and joy in that moment like I had never felt before. It was like I could feel the Father’s heart cheering us on. I could feel Him shouting for joy that His children were answering the call to rise up and change a generation.
And for hours it continued. Right up until about 20 minutes before we were due to close the doors. As we started our tear down process, we all looked at each other in disbelief. We waited in anticipation as the numbers were counted.
77
77 individual kid’s lives were changed.
And to double that (conservatively) includes the lives of people who made a decision to change their own stories by entering into relationship with these precious kids.
I saw three year old Chandler come into the sponsor room and pick out a little boy who was about his age. I heard his mom say, “we want them to grow up together.”
I saw twenty-something Emily who is right out of college and starting her first job beam as she picked out a little girl in Ethiopia. She finally gets to sponsor her own child.
I saw a couple who seemed skeptical Saturday night, come back Sunday morning and sponsor two kids.
I could go on and on about every story. But what I want you to take away from this, my friends, is that God is alive and moving on this Change Tour.
This week will you pray for the new sponsors and the kids that were sponsored?
If you were at the experience at or sponsored a kid recently, will you share your story with us? We’d love to hear it in the comments below.
Change Tour 