The days crawled by, Mr and Mrs. Lavoie had three more sessions with the school until the big end-of-two-week-retreat/worship-night. They had more people come to those three sessions than they did in all of the other ones put together. God was definitely working. When that evening came I was so excited I nearly jumped out of my skin. We got there early and watched as person after person, face after face entered the gym where we had set up the stage. I was delighted to see a good chunk of my friends come in, including Chris. Katerine was followed by a few other Christian friends and people from her youth group. All in all, the evening was awesome.
The band from Elise's youth group had come to play for us. First we started off with some rock songs so we could let ourselves go and jump around. Then we slowly progressed to a few worship songs. Then chairs were pulled out and there were a few other guest speakers who came and spoke. After this we sang some more songs and by then I could just feel the Holy Spirit's presence. It was filling the room, touching every heart, hugging every soul. I looked around and everyone was into it. Some were writing in the journals we had told them to bring and some were just enthralled with the worship. By the end of the song 'Give me one Pure and Holy Passion', Landon was on his knees bawling with Katerine and her friends praying over him.
Before, crying, in my opinion, was a sign of defeat and weakness. It was for people who were too stupid to think of anything else to do. But now I saw it in a different light. Crying is human, everybody does it. It was perhaps a sign of defeat, but maybe we do need to admit defeat once in a while, especially to God. After a while everything builds up and we need to let it go.
Some people weren't crying though. Elise had once told me that she thought that she had to cry when she went to retreats. She had to have something wrong to confess, because, well, that's how it always happened. But she understood now that that was not the case. She should be cherishing the time she had while it was easy to believe in Him instead of making problems for herself. She was being a fake and lying and she knew that this displeased God. She wasn't pleasing God by repenting from something she had just made up, or made herself do.
Unfortunately all of my other friends had left before half the night was gone. After singing some more, there was some drama, and a few people read some poems. Then it was open mike time. One after the other people poured out their stories, each ending with how everything had changed after they met the Lover of their soul, Jesus. It was absolutely amazing to see. In the early morning we split up into small groups and prayed and talked about our experiences. We ended with a few more powerful songs and everyone was jumping up and down and dancing and singing praises to His name. When we were done, we did a count and twenty-five people had been saved or re-committed their lives to Christ that one night. We all praised God for such a miracle.
I realised that God had a major plan for everything. Because God had allowed Biko to lead me to Him, I had helped show all those twenty-five people God's love. All those twenty-five people would be leaving this auditorium and go out into the world and tell others, and those others would be used by God to save others.
Only God had this plan in mind from the beginning. Only He knew that a simple thing like taking a plane ride to South Africa to visit my mom could change so many people's lives. He was smiling down upon me, even in my rebellious age and thinking of the time when I would be standing on that very platform.
When I got home I paid Elise's younger sister for babysitting Dillan that evening and early morning. I was utterly happy. I felt so cleansed. I didn't know what God had in store for the rest of my life, or for Dillan's life, but the only thing I did know was that it would be well because "All things work toogether for good, for those who love the Lord." Romans 8:28.
hehe that'smy ideal worship night thingy... all night worshiping our Creator, moshing, speakers,testimonies.. i love that kind of stuff :)