Last night I slept 13 hours. Went to bed at 7:30pm and got up at 8:30 this morning. That's how tired I was. I don't think I've slept that long since I was in diapers. I was tired on every level: physically, emotionally and spiritually. But I've never had a more enjoyable time getting that exhausted.
I actually made it to three plenary sessions this time (compared to one last) and the speakers were pretty good. Rick Warren showed up and Bono had taped a message for us -- both were worth listening to. The worship was much better than last time and I often got carried away singing along with 22,000 others. We made a ton of contacts this time too: we collected more than 800 cards to follow up on -- compared to 548 last time. Each of those 800 represents a life -- someone God is stirring up -- and now the real work of follow up begins. Even these 800 represent only a portion of the people we encountered and ministered to. Many of my conversations didn't end in filling out a card. And that's OK. It's not about PIONEERS growing larger or doing more -- it's about the Spirit of God working in the hearts of His people.
But none of these was the highlight. The highlight was the time spent with our team. What an amazing privilege to be part of this group. Even though the team came together much later than it did three years ago, God was clearly knitting it together. We had an incredible spirit of unity even though many of us met for the first time on December 27th.
Our team meetings on the 28th (two hours), 29th and 30th (one hour each) and 31st (one and a half hours) were highlights of my life thus far. We got to know each other through a quick game, covered a lot of details about meals, appointments, schedules and other logistics and came together each morning through a devotional led by one of the team. But what made it so great were the prayer times we shared and the stories we shared about the people we'd met the previous day. That's when we really came together I think. We rejoiced to hear how God was moving, answering our prayers and drawing people to Himself. We prayed passionately for the people we'd met, for each other, for lost people around the world. It was just an amazing experience to feel the Lord moving among us and through us.
It was a great conference for PIONEERS as well. More than once we overhead a student tell another to go to the PIONEERS booth because "they pray for you there". And we did -- after every single conversation. Many people stopped by to have their picture taken with our giant globe (check it out below) ...
We also had many people stop by because of an email I'd written about a week before. Like every other organization attending Urbana (there were about 270 there), we were given the opportunity to purchase a list of attendees who'd indicated that they were "highly motivated" to go into missions. We purchased this list and sent out an email, as did 20-25 other organizations. I wrote the email and knowing that they'd be getting quite a few, made a distinct effort to make mine personal, heartfelt and not the least bit manipulative or pushy. It seems to have hit the mark. I got a number of responses leading up to the conference and many more people who stopped by mentioned the email as a principle reason they'd come to us. It was very gratifying to see what effect those words had had on people.
In general, I didn't have as many great conversations at Urbana this year as I'd had last time, but I feel very good about my role in all of it. My best work for Urbana may have been the email, but it may also have been just acting as the leader for our team and being able to guide them, by God's grace, into a place where He was invited to work through us. I feel like I took on many cares and concerns last week so that the team didn't have to, and in being freed from those details, they were freed up to concentrate wholly on blessing those we came to serve. So it worked. It was perfect and I'm so thrilled, blessed, happy, humbled, weary and jubilant.
To God be the Glory. I will remember this experience the rest of my life.
Were you there? What's your story?
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