I've been meaning for a week now to write a follow-up ("this is how it went, and what I learned") type of post about the NYWC... but as the days stretched on, and I got busier and busier with real life I just didn't feel like putting the pen to the paper, as it were....
Well anyhoo... Tersie reminded me that it is better to post late than never, which is great advice.
So here goes....
NYWC Atlanta - Day 5 in review
I was right about the short night... Knowing that we would need to be packed up and out of the hotel before we headed over to make 8 AM sessions, and not having packed, organized, or made a plan for the morning, we fell into bed about 2 with our alarms set for 5:15...
I'm not quite sure how... but we somehow managed to get up, get showered, get packed, cart everything to the car, and be checked out of our luxury accommodations by 7:15 AM... This left us plenty of time to drag ourselves to the convention center, detour by Starbucks ( There is nothing that says "Good Morning!" like a half-quart of vanilla-bean frappuccino with a quad shot of espresso ) and get Jenn settled into a session when it started by 8.
While Jenn was in her session I went ahead and picked up our DVD's ( Shane Claiborne's and Phyllis Tickle's general sessions were must have on my DVD list ) and some of those cards for downloading MP3's of the sessions we really liked or didn't make it to... I was lazy and just sat around in the YS store, slurping my frappuccino and making new friends until they opened the gates for us to take seats in the general session.
Since the Monday morning general session always feels sparsely populated after the others of the weekend, it was nothing to just wander in and grab a seat right up against the center stage. I will never get tired of the Skit Guys and Lost & Found... Great stuff that...
This shot is from one of the skit guys skits before the general session...
And this one is the guys giving the sign language interpreters ( who were amazing, throughout the weekend ) a hard time by saying "dog poop" over and over again...
I felt bad for Marko... The technical glitches in his presentation obviously frustrated him, but I don't think they took away from his message. The way we do Youth ministry is changing. It has to change, and we can either be on board with the change or get left behind... ( Sorry for no more recollection than that... It was a week ago and I haven't re-listened to the mp3 yet... )
Jenn and I made some last minute grabs from the YS store after the session, and then headed back to the van for the long trek back home... Oh, and after their prompting on the night before we went through Centenial Park on the way back to the hotel and found the brick donated by Lost & Found.
Long story short on the drive... We left Atlanta about 3:30 in the afternoon, made a stop in Knoxville to switch from me driving to Jenn driving, and then stopped again in Louisville to trade back... We made it home safely ( jamming to Lost & Found most of the way ) at about 12:30 AM... grabbed our laptops out of the van and went straight to bed.
Now that we've been back for a week and had time to re acclimate to "real life" I think that a Highlights/What I learned blog is in order... Since this one is getting long though, I'll adjourn to a new post... See you there.
2 comments:
Thanks for following up with your "long overdue post." I, for one, am glad you posted it and I'm pretty certain there are others! :)
It sounds like you and Jenn had quite a long Day 5! I don't know how you guys managed to make it all the way back home on that little amount of sleep.
I can't wait to read why you got out of the experience overall!
I think it's about time for another long overdue post = )
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