MYC 2013

I have a tendency to post often for a short while, then my blog will remain quiet for a few months. Sometimes I post about my thoughts on something interesting, most of the time I just post bunches of photos with minimal text from a past event in my life for memories' sake. I'm not good at expressing myself very well and am often scared of posting my thoughts on something deep, spiritual or personal on here.
But any way, I went on a conference at Mt. Tambourine with my family two weeks ago. MYC. It was mainly for the uni students involved in Student Life, and as my Dad works full time with this organisation he had to go to train the people. But the rest of us went as well since there was child minding for the my younger siblings and a youth program organised for my two sisters, myself and the other youth of the Student Life staff. I was a little sceptical of what us teenagers would be doing all week. Let's just say I wasn't hugely looking forward to going on this conference.
The first day or two were good, I was able to spend time with my friend and sisters, but there were also new youth there and some I hadn't seen in a long time. It was hard at first and awkward at times, but we eventually became comfortable around each other and made friends with the new people.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the conference was the fact that we got to join the uni students for a lot of the time. We went to the talks in the morning by an amazing speaker, John North and had worship in the big auditorium. After, we'd sit on the grass in the beautiful sunshine, soaking its warmth on the cold day and spend alone time with God, pondering what we had learnt from the session. Once morning tea was over, we would have fun hanging out together playing drama games, stacks of card games, talking and laughing, trips into town and even trivia quizzes. After lunch was usually free time where there would be activities like sport, bush walks, shopping expeditions and even a bush dance. Then special 'electives' by many different SL staff were on up until dinner and I had the opportunity to go to one elective on authentic Thai cooking...it was amazing and I have recipes for two delicious Thai dishes now to try out.
Our two youth leaders, Will and Leisa were great. I didn't quite connect with them at first, but as the days went by, we talked more about so many things, hung out and played games and they were considered awesome in my book by the end of the week.
The most amazing, inspiring experience I had on the conference was the outreach on Sunday afternoon. Almost all the students and staff were paired off, mostly with mixed sexes and a more experienced partner working with someone of lesser experience. Then we were all sent off (in buses/cars) to four different communities/areas on the Gold Coast to door knock for four churches, one in each area we were outreaching in. I was outreaching with Emily, a woman who works for my Dad in the Catalytic part of Student Life ( and recently got married and moved to Toowoomba!).
We went to a certain area and door knocked on a couple streets in this neighbourhood. We had some interesting and fun conversations with some of the people there. Unfortunately, many of the doors has 'no door knocking/no sales person' on them, so our door knocking was reduced somewhat. But it was all so completely worth it in the end. Our last door knock and conversation was with a lady and it lasted over half an hour. Emily did most of the talking, but it was a real, deep spiritual conversation and by the end of it Emily had given the lady (Louise) a Knowing God Personally booklet and her contact details. It was such an encouraging, surreal and amazing experience. I felt just so inspired to go and tell everyone about Jesus. Emily was such a blessing to Louise in that conversation, the Holy Spirit was really guiding her to say the right things to the woman. After we finally said goodbye and had to return to Mt. Tambourine the two of us were beaming and praising God so much for the awesome opportunity we had had. Emily's face was full of so much joy, it was a pleasure to just watch her and talk all the way home in the car.
The last full day of conference was so good. John North's second last talk impacted me so much as a person. The topic for the conference was all of Him in all of me for all of them and this particular talk was all of me. Our speaker talked of how we need to give Jesus all of me, as a person and how absolutely nothing can be in the way. It was so powerful and convicting. And something I truly hope to remember for the rest of my days. That night after a John North's last talk, everyone had a crazy, huge dance party in the auditorium. It was a heap of fun and we all danced ourselves dead (and our voices too!).
The very last day, we had a good wrap up as a youth and took a couple of photos (unfortunately, two of the guys had to leave a couple days earlier, so they weren't there) together. Then it was time to say goodbye and go back home to our normal lives.
An awesome conference, MYC was over...I had experienced an inspiring, wonderful and different week that I'll never forget. People are amazing. God is so, so good.

Made a good friend, Hannah. I now have an excuse to go to Victoria...to visit my American friend, two months older than me and living in Melbourne. Yay.

It was a good conference. Great times.

xo,
Holly