ACCESS

Last week a friend and I got the opportunity to fly down to Atlanta, Georgia (for free!) for a short two day meeting with several university campus ministers from around the States at the Passion House held by the Passion staff.

Here's a break down of how we got there and what we did:
(*Author's note: It's hella long. Read at your own pace.*)

We were supposed to leave Toronto Pearson around 11:15am for Washington D.C. where we would have a three hour layover then onto Atlanta arriving local time at 5:15pm. Pumped and excited - nothing could bring us down, not even my stuffy nose or...a super long check in line?!

There were many close calls as the seemingly short check in line took almost an hour in which we found out that our gate was closing. Then after getting our boarding passes, we find ourselves in another long line through customs then through security. At security, gosh - that's an entirely separate blog entry right there! I have never been through such tension through security check in my life! From taking off my shoes, jackets and accessories to being beeped down several times to having every single nook and cranny of my bags observed before I got the right to pass. Gosh - I'm glad they're taking every little precaution - but man, the environment is very tight.

Anyhow, to make a long story short - we make it to our gate in time, exhausted. We get on this cool small chartered aircraft that we literally get to walk onto (felt celebrity-ish) and we were on our way to D.C.!

Our three hour stop in the nation's capital was full of adventures to say the least. We grabbed a quick lunch and decided to explore outside of the airport. The first thing we saw when we walked outside was highways and a huge hill. My travelling buddy being the adventurous one - she decided that we should scale that steep hill to see all that D.C. boasts about! With our luggage in tow, we got to the top to find...a parking lot.

It was time to get back to our gate! After the anti-climatic climb, we headed back down and made our way back to security. This time, it was a lot crazier! We had the airport staff yelling, 'Faster!' and 'Take of your jacket and shoes!' and 'Faster!' times a zillion. Everyone was moving and taking off their clothes as fast as they could! It was rather traumatizing! At the last moment I had to take out my laptop and walk through the security thing twice 'cause my earrings kept beeping! When we got out of the line there's an area where everyone puts there things back together and their clothes back on. It was kind of hilarious 'cause everyone was so stunned at how fast it went yet how traumatizing it all was too!

We were more tired than ever! We finally boarded our flight towards our destination, Atlanta, Georgia. As our plane took off we got to see an aerial view the nation's capital and it was then that the Spirit prompted me to pray for this country. How often is it that I get the chance to fly over such a strategic piece of land on this earth? I prayed for its leaders, for its churches and for its university students. May God continue to make Himself known over there.

As our plane descends into Atlanta we pray over this State 'cause so much has been birthed out of the Passion ministry here that has impacted the world in many ways. We finally land in Atlanta - fully pumped again to hear the sounds of the Southern drawl such as 'ya'll' all around us. We met up with a bunch of people from Boston, Connecticut, West Virginia, Arkansas and 'round the States. For the first time, I've never felt so ignorant about not knowing the different schools, capitals and states! On our van ride to the Passion House we felt so lost in the conversations!

In any case, we met some amazing people as we made our way to the Passion House and God was really beginning to stir something within me in the midst of our conversations. We were served a really amazing Southern meal full of BBQ chicken, pork, corn soufflé, sweet tea, mash potatoes and the like. It was great to see people like Eddie again. I met Eddie last summer when he came up to Toronto to meet some university leaders to get the news about Passion Toronto around. He's a truly great MOG and a humble one too. After dinner, we got a quick tour around the Passion House - which is gorgeous!

It's this old colonial mansion that has been transformed and added to in size. Each room is either an office or a dining room or the kitchen or the production room or the mailing room. They're beautiful and so modern and so homey. Even the washrooms were pretty to look at! I loved it.

After that we all gathered into this room where Eddie introduced all of us. There were people from the East to the West, from the North to the South of the States. Then there was my friend and I from Canada :) I couldn't have been more proud... :)

Then Louie Giglio went up and began to share with us Passion's heartbeat. He was reminding us that it was never for large conferences nor was it supposed to turn out to be a record making company. From day one and even to this day - Passion will always be about the university students of this nation and of this world. Man - that hit me hard. They are ministers who travel the world as Levites and as preachers - yet their heart is always for serving the university students. I love that.

He went on to talk about different aspects of our college ministries from the spiritual integrity of it to the quality of it to the capacity of our leadership. There were seven points in total and all of them hit home. By the end of the evening there was a lot of heart surgery needed in my life as I realized that taking a 'rest' this year was not an option.

Prior to us coming to this meeting - the Passion staff had sent us 'in-flight reading/listening' options for our flying pleasure. So that came with a booklet full of cool articles and a CD sermon preached by this fiery woman of God from the UK about prayer on her campus years ago. It has got to be by far one of the most powerful sermon's I've ever heard in my life thus far and it riveted my soul with a new found desire to pray, seek and fast on behalf of my campus.

In any case - that night as Louie preached - all of this campus related ministry that I thought I would take a 'hold' on just resonated all over again. I'm so pumped!! He spoke about our campuses having firstly, presence, and from that grows traction and from that grows epidemic or rather an eruption and from that our Christianity should become a trait in our university. Wow. After his talk, he invited Steve Fee to lead us into a time of worship. And man, Mr.Fee is one anointed worship leader. We spent time just pressing in with our praise which turned to prayer which turned back to praise. We prayed for the north and the next day we would pray for the south, east and west. It was powerful.

When it had all ended, it was close to midnight and all of us had spent most of the day travelling and we were just physically spent. We were driven to our hotel (which was NICE!) and ready to unwind and rest up for the next day. For some odd reason, I woke up every two hours that night. But the Lord was silent. Perhaps I was just anxious to get up for the next day?

Anyway, the Passion vans were at our hotel bright and early to get us at 8:15 in the AM. As groggy as we all were - we were excited to meet up again. We had breakfast courtesy of the wonderful people at Passion again and then we were split into 5 groups of 4 (ministries per group) to have a chance for all of us to share about our ministries and to be prayed over. It was really encouraging to hear about what was going on around the States. Their campus ministry is COMPLETELY different from how we do things in Toronto...or even in Ontario...perhaps, even Canada! They have long term staff workers on their campuses! And in long term I mean like 19 years long term! It was slightly overwhelming having to share about York, but also other campuses in Toronto and Ontario...since we're all so different – yet, we both felt it was important that we represent the Canadian universities, at least the ones in Toronto the best we could.

After a really eye opening time of sharing (our group got to share in Louie's office! haha), we all went back to the main room to gather again. That's when Louie asked us to share about York and Toronto to everyone. This was the clincher guys. As I shared about our heart for our city and its diversity and how Toronto's the port to the world (the nations are all gathered here) - my heart welled up with love over this city and our great nation of Canada. I love Canada! The both of us poured out our praise items as well as our requests and what happened afterwards was just pure love.

Louie just spoke such high praise and deep love for our city that it brought the both of us to tears.

Then he asked everyone in that room to lay hands on us and to pray for our campus and our city - that the Lord may send missionaries to our campuses. Wow...totally blew me away. Probably one of the most memorable parts of our trip.

After that Louie asked four other ministries to share and we laid hands on them and cried out for their campus and their city. It was a really intense time of ministry. Then we were all loaded onto the Passion vans and headed to downtown Atlanta to get a tour of where Passion 07 would be held. We were led to two of the arenas where the main sessions would be taking place (they are expecting 25,000 students to attend in January). They had a huge map of downtown Atlanta laid out for us to see. (That definitely reminded me of our YOAH prayer map) Then they went through the play by play of what would take place and how we could pray specifically for everything. We all gathered together as a large group and Louie prayed over us then we prayed over him and his wife, Shelly. What amazing people.

That almost sums up our time together - we all leave as one large group for the last time for some good ol' Southern fast food lunch. Most of us choose Chik-fil-A - and for many of us who didn't know - Louie's dad designed the logo to that fast food chain! At lunch, Louie sat down with us and I got the chance to share my deeper heart's desire for China. It was so encouraging having him just spur me on in that passion I have for the Chinese people. I love how their vision is not only for the university students of the West - but it's for the world! It's for the fame and renown of our Lord Jesus Christ to be spread throughout the entire earth. I couldn't 'Amen' that enough.

As it was time to leave, we quickly got Louie to say a few words onto my camera for all the uni students of Toronto. I would love to share that with all of you reading - so if you want your message please let me know how I can get that to you! They are praying for us and loving us so incredibly much, Canada!

We said our goodbyes and it was off to the airport. That in itself was another adventure! But I have a feeling that this blog is getting way too long. So in a nutshell, it was raining hard that day so many flights were cancelled - including ours. (Yeah, I know...rain!!) We managed to get another connecting flight to Charlotte, North Carolina with our West Virginia buddies and flew there - then flew home.

It's great to be home...'cause that's where all the action will begin. Thanks for all of you who prayed, and for all of you who will pray after reading this post. Stay tuned on what the Lord's doing on your campus - 'cause Jesus is on the move.

(For more pictures - check out my imagestation)