Encounterfest

This past weekend I was part of Encounterfest. It's Hillsong's youth conference for students from grade 7 all the way up to age 25. (Yeah they call age 18-25, youth) Anyways, it was incredible. The purpose is basically portrayed in the title of the conference, Encounterfest. It's a time for us to encounter God. It's also a time where the United team records for their new album. Now if you follow Hillsong at all or if you love their music, I really think you're going to love the songs that are to come out in the future. They are absolutely amazing! The thing is, they are so completely different to what Hillsong has ever done before... a totally new style. Oh I love it! 

Anyways, Encounterfest was indeed awesome. And it's purpose was fulfilled in  my life..... I had an encounter with God. The speaker was Carl Lentz. He's a young guy from Wave Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was great... very passionate, funny, and inspiring. 

One of the nights we did an offering for Biju Thampy's ministry in India. The money was to go towards buying a bus equipped with medical supplies so that Biju and his team can travel around India to care for children's medical needs. As a creative way to give, they brought a medical van into the convention centre for us to put our offering into. Anyways, the ministry needed about $40,000 to get the bus and medical supplies. Well.... us youth at Encounterfest gave just over $40,000 in one night. Amazing...

On Friday night, 100 of us went out to the streets of Sydney at 10:30pm to hand out swags and hygiene items to homeless people. (a swag is like a sleeping bag/backpack) We went out in teams and walked around the streets looking for homeless people to give them to. It was raining that night so a lot of them disappeared to find shelter so we didn't have a whole lot of luck. But we were able to hand out a few. Some of the homeless men refused to take the swags. I think they just wanted to take care of themselves and not feel like they needed what we had to offer. At the end we all met up in a park and this homeless guy walked up wanting a swag because he saw his friend had one. He was really excited and appreciative about it. He was talking to one of the guys as I listened into the conversation (I know... nosy) Want to know the heart of a homeless guy? Well here are his words... "I'm just lonely. I walk around or I catch a train to the city, but I'm just lonely you know?" It broke my heart. But he seemed interested in the church. Every Sunday a team picks up the homeless and brings them to church and feeds them. Hillsong has a team that goes out every Thursday night to hang out with the homeless people and give them something to eat. I might start being a part of it for the remaining time I have here. 

Well I know this is all kind of random, but I just wanted to share some stories from my time at Encounterfest, so there you go!