The Glory of the Lord
We had one emotional night in New Orleans at the Worship Service at the National Youth Gathering. Our youth and adults shared in God’s wonderful gift of communion with 25,000 of their newest friends in the Louisiana Superdome. Unreal!
Yesterday, we learned a bit about the culture and the disparity between the “haves” and “have nots” here in New Orleans when we visited Holt Cemetary. Plots in Holt have been owned by families for generations, and here they are forced to bury their deceased family members on top of previously buried ancestors. The cemetary is in need of much repair, as the plot owners have not taken very good care of their land and the city of New Orleans is out of money to fund it.
While we were there, we saw a family – kids who were younger than ours – digging up one of the gravesites to undoubtedly bury another of their family. As we learned at a prayer vigil we attended Monday night, the murder rate in New Orleans is one of the highest – if not the highest – in the country. These scenes are all too familiar to a town needing God’s help in so many ways.
After our brief tour and finishing up attending sessions in the Convention Center, we attended the Mass Event in the Superdome which was a Worship Service. The night began with an actor portrayal of Jesus on a cross. It ended with an uplifting communion ceremony. In between were more dramatics, a beautiful soprano voice as part of a large youth choir, and a great youth band! It was quite a night, and it left more of our kids finding that this was the favorite night of the week. God is amazing!
But all good things must come to end (except God’s love for us and eternity in heaven), and the National Youth Gathering is wrapping up. A quick turnaround this morning takes us back to the Superdome for a bit of a “Closing Ceremony” - another Mass Event – where there promises to be a lot of praise songs and energy to infuse the crowd before they depart. The group is running on adrenaline at this point, and it’s totally worth it!
And of course, the big announcement of where the 2013 event is going to be! (Although, we’re pretty sure we already know we might be “Lonestarring” it in three years!)
After the final “good-bye,” our group will spend the rest of the afternoon touring some of the greater New Orleans area still devastated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We’ll have some friends join us for the day – Brian and Nicole Steward, Crystal Loyd, Nick Dunne, and Gabby Fernandez – will be around to help us close our trip to New Orleans with (I’m sure) interesting stories of what happened behind the scenes.
With the end of this trip near and God’s work in lives beginning, we need your prayers on our safe travel back (as well as our college-age leaders who were here)!
What a week. Off to the dome!