UAE

Guys, I'm back, and my heart is on fire from what God is doing in the United Arab Emirates. In fact, I wasn't ready for what he was going to show me - and that started from the very first moments I stepped off the plane. We were driving from the airport - me, Amy (the head of Desert Challenge and all things YFC in that region), and Jacob who I hadn't seen in a couple months. Our car started hissing and every good person in Dubai who thought we couldn't see the wig of smoke rising from the car hood was blasting horns and pointing. We parked at a gas station, sat on a curb, and drank orange juice. Amy was stressing because she has a conference to plan and I was sitting there IN JOY because, well, I'm in Dubai with Jacob and Amy and I'm sitting on a curb in the middle of the night quoting The Office and telling stories.
Then check this out. Later that night, we:
1) had a meeting at 4:30 am. Yes. Read that one more time, in case you missed it. I was teetering at the meeting but alive and 'myself' and then...
2) we had our minds blown at the videos Jacob and Ray and others put together for DC. Blew away in sense that any fears I had that the normal genre-limitations and cheesiness of contemporary mass-christian art would dominate the tone of this conference were destroyed. Guys, these videos are about four minutes a piece and they rocked. The videos were sick. True accomplisments. They stand up to multiple viewings.
3) I had my mind blown at the love and graciousness, the welcoming spirit, and the desire for these kids to be impacted. This whole spirit came drenched with a sense of edification and establishment: I had every sense that they wanted the talks to go well, my time there to be everything I wanted it to be, and God to be in total control.
Which he was. All these little things happened which kept decentralizing myself from the center of this thing. Listen, that has to happen. Christians love to take any speaker - even the average ones - and place them up high. Not this time. My initial goals for my own talks were dwarfed and forgotten on night #1. I'll be telling these stories here, very soon.
Love to you all. Now I'm back in the city of Angels. Ready to do this.
Keep Running,
John