A [Passion]ate Recap

This January 2-5, I was giving the rare opportunity to go to Passion 2012 conference a few of my fellow Eighteen22'ers were given a chance to attend this event thanks to a generous family.

I had never been to anything like this before so I although I was unsure as to what was going to happen, I was sure I wanted to go! Since the conference was taking place in Atlanta(ATL) GA, that was not going to be a quick trip. Around 7am the group of loaded into two 15 passenger vans and began our journey.

 
many of us were wide awake despite the fact it was 7am

Others despite fact were excited about the trip, 7am is too early

I fell asleep during parts of the journey so I wasn't sure where I was...apparently I forgot GA was the Peach state...not the pumpkin state...I was quickly corrected

 

As soon as we got to Atlanta we headed to our hotel...the 'W'

 
It basically was like sleeping on a cloud, if clouds were a solid

Outside of the hotel is this fountain...Hotlanta was NOT hot at all this trip

I learned how to subway surf while traveling to and from the GA dome, the subways were packed and i was too short to reach the ceiling bars which were the only ones available. I gained incredible balance! I was even able to take this pic!

It took about 8 hours to get there, but we made it right on time for registration!

 
This was basically close to the end of the line...well sorta..

 
We received two forms of admittance, a lanyard (yes it does in fact look like the Pokemon symbol)

and a wristband (people got random colored ones though)

The time I was there I got to experience some interesting things like:

 Over 40,000 believers praising together is such an incredible experience

Had a front and center spot at the Hillsong United worship



The event blew my mind! I got to worship with Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and Hillsong United
and hear messages from a few of my favorite speakers:

Beth Moore

                                                                    Francis Chan

I have taken away 2 very important newly gained knowledge from this:

1.Ignorance is NOT bliss!

I had no idea that slavery was still a major problem in today’s society. Over 27 million people around the world (the United States is just as guilty of this as the rest of the other countries). I seriously had a one of those palm to face kind of moment while talking with my friends Landon and Leney.   I typically am not one to be moved when approached with for a lack of better words a “sob story”, but this really captured my attention because I didn’t realize it was a huge problem. So after reading up I decided I would do what I can to help out, mainly just praying that the A21 (campaign that Passion is behind)  continues to be funded in their efforts to help free more slaves and also help the freed ease back into normalcy. I  pray that others who have no idea like myself discover this injustice as well.