After Christmas I packed my bags, hugged (most of) my family good bye, and headed back to the airport this time with my brother Keaton, and our friend, Aynsley. We were headed for Atlanta for five days for the Passion Conference, a Christian conference organized by Louie Giglio for students within the ages of 18-25. The purpose of Passion is focusing on the upcoming generation, to set them on fire for Jesus, and encourage them to go in the direction that God wants for their life. Passion exists to see a generation leverage their lives for what matters most, to live in such a way that their journey on earth counts for what is most important in the end.
I had heard about Passion Conferences years before and in 2017 I had kept a close eye on their new songs, speakers, etc and knew that I wanted to experience it at least once before I was too old to attend. I mentioned it to my brother and he said he would like to go too. So as soon as tickets were available, we purchased two, found two cheap airline tickets, and booked a not-so-cheap hotel room. We were all set to attend Passion 2018, which was over 10 months away but we were so excited. Aynsley was excited about it too when we were talking about it so she quickly booked tickets too.
About a month later I saw a post on Facebook that said something like “Missionary Position available…” and I knew I was supposed to be in Haiti. I had known for a while but that was the final push that was needed. I talked the details through with Karen and she agreed that I should still attend the conference and also go home for Christmas to see my family.
The summer flew by and so did my first couple months at HATS, then my Christmas visit went by way to fast and we were off! We stayed overnight in Halifax because of an insanely early morning flight and were off on time the next morning. Keaton’s first time flying was great, no turbulence, and smooth take-off and landing. We were delayed for a couple hours in Toronto due to ice so we took a trip (or two…) to Starbucks and I caught up on some blogging ideas I had been thinking about.
We all know God is good and He works everything out for a reason but sometimes it still makes me smile and I’ll look up and think “that was definitely you God!” We were supposed to land in Atlanta quite early in the morning and we couldn’t check into our hotel until three that afternoon, I was not too pleased about the idea of hauling luggage all over downtown Atlanta while waiting for our room. But we ended up being delayed in Halifax slightly and then quite a bit in Toronto so we arrived in Atlanta later then expected. We grabbed some lunch, hired an Uber (which was an adventure in itself), and got to our hotel after 2:30 pm. We could check in right away and settled into our room for a quick break before heading out to explore the Georgia aquarium which was right across the road. We didn’t make it to see the new year in as we had been up since 2:30 am but we celebrated with burgers at a retro dinner before heading in for the night.
The Conference didn’t start until Monday night so we spent the day exploring downtown Atlanta, eating at local restaurants, and visiting museums and other attractions. I was expecting to get away from the bitter cold and snow of Canada but we ended up bringing it down with us to Atlanta! The flurries were flying and it was bitterly cold the whole time we were there.
We stood in line for four hours waiting to get seats that night. It seemed to take forever to get started but once it did it was amazing! The Passion City Band and Matt Redman led worship and Levi Lusko preached from one of the other venues and it was live streamed to our arena.
Matt Redman
The next day was packed with amazing speakers and worship. I was star struck from seeing Louie and Shelly Giglio, Kristian Stanfill, Sadie Robertson, Tim Tebow, and many others. We were flying high on Jesus as we literally ran back to our hotel room that night, partly because it was freezing and the ten minute walk seemed to take forever, and partly because we were so pumped over the day we had experienced.
Christine Caine
They saved the best for last as we experienced the best worship time and incredible speaking by Priscilla Shrier the next morning during our last session.
Priscilla Shrier
The music, the atmosphere, the speakers, the door holders, and the other students we met were absolutely amazing and made the experience that much more exciting.
One thing that stood out to me was how at peace I was. Most of the time growing up, whenever I listened to talks, sermons, or went to conferences I always had an uneasy feeling that I wasn’t where I should be in my life, or I wasn’t doing exactly what God wanted to me do. But the whole time I was at Passion I was able to stand and freely and openly worship and truly feel connected to God in that true relationship. There were no distractions, or there were no feelings of “Oh I should be doing something different with my life”. Louie Giglio preached about how we are flaming arrows in the hands of God and He shoots us where He wants us. He talked about having a purpose for your life and knowing what you should do with your life. To feel so at peace and in tune with what God wants for my life is incredible, to put it in to words in nearly impossible, it is just an overwhelming calm and peace in my life.
I never truly understood what people meant when they said they were really in love with God or had such a close connection with Him like that, I didn’t get it and had never experienced that. But since being in Haiti and going to Passion I have felt truly in love with God, like I can’t get enough of Him. I can’t read His word enough, I can’t get enough of God. I am hungry for God, I am constantly seeking after, and talking to, and praising God. I pray that this isn’t just a result of a high from the conference but that this would continue for the rest of my life because I don’t ever want to lose this feeling. Through bad times and hard times and times where things just will not go right but I still say God is good, God you’re so good to me.
I thank God that He placed a desire on the Giglio’s hearts 21 years ago to start the Passion movement for the generations to come. Not only does it have an impact on the students that attended this year, it will continue on for years on campuses, churches, through future attendees, and families of the attenders.
Jocelyn
