Resurrection 2011 is a Holston Conference Youth Event for youth groups and their leaders. These Youth gather in Gatlinburg, TN for a weekend of spiritual renewal full of speakers, music and exhibitors like Mountain T.O.P.
I left Friday to spend the weekend promoting Mountain T.O.P. and on Saturday morning they made the mistake of giving me a microphone ... see the Holston Conference collects money for their Youth Service Fund and then gives that money through grants to organizations in and out of their conference. (Mountain T.O.P. is affiliated with the Tennessee Conference on the United Methodist Church.) They asked us to share with everyone about how the grant money was used in 2010, which was primarily used in Day Camp for backpacks and transportation. It was a big stage with lots of lights and IT WAS AWESOME!!! I got to tell everyone about who we are and what we do! I started by throwing out t-shirts and water bottles!! Seriously, you would have thought I was throwing out one hundred dollar bills.. kids go crazy over this stuff! With all the screaming, I figured we should keep screaming, so I asked kids to yell if they a) loved summer camp, b) loved helping others, and c) loved God. Then I went on to say that we're God-loving, crazy campers who love to help people! As a recruiter, it was a glorious moment. Thousands, and I mean THOUSANDS of people heard about camp and all the things we're doing in Appalachia (7,300 total!). As a result, I talked to multiple people about Mountain T.O.P. ... they gave me a spot on the first floor right next to the Resurrection t-shirt booth (YESSS!), so I was in a huge traffic area and it was FANTASTIC!! I played music and showed a slide show on my laptop and passed out tons of brochures! This is by far the best year we've had at Resurrection (we've been going for 3 years now) and I am so excited that people are learning about the ministry!!!
There were also a few people I met that already knew all about Mountain T.O.P.!! Becky and Herb Piercy came to Mountain T.O.P. for 10 years in the 80's. They told me that between all the members in their family, they have over 50 fishhooks!!! Every day they shared stories from their camp weeks with me.. like how they got to swim in the river at Glancy and how Reed Bradford had to sleep in his truck one week because he was snoring so loud (hehe Reed)! They were so excited to see that Mountain T.O.P. was still around! Becky told me that she hoped our foundational objectives were still the same. She strongly believes in our efforts to empower youth and really focus on developing them as leaders.
I also talked to David Johnston who was on staff in the 80's and a former camper who wants to get her church involved in Mountain T.O.P.! Like I said before, Mountain T.O.P. has been changing lives for a long time and it's uplifting to hear from people who've loved this ministry for a long time!!!
Of the new people I met, I was mostly impressed with the youth. Three young teenage girls walked up to me and said, "How do we sign-up for camp!?" Another young girl asked me about AIM (woo Quest!!!) .. and an 18 year old guy inquired about working on summer staff!!!
So, as you can tell, I'm a little excited about the weekend. Praise God for His blessings, for the connections we're making and for the new ways we're spreading the word! This weekend (and really these past two weeks) have made me so thankful. I'm taken back to the 35th hour of prayer for new beginnings... May we be blessed with new beginnings, new people, new programs, new energy and new passion for Mountain T.O.P. Praise God, praise God, praise God!
that's awesome!
ReplyDeletethis made my heart smile HUGE!!
ReplyDeleteGod is so good!!!